upon your shoulders
by MnemeMemory
Summary: Allen isn't crazy - no matter what Cross Marian says. He doesn't plan on spending his life at the Black Order Asylum for the Criminally Insane, but no one's really stopped to ask him about it. When things go awry and he ends up working instead of staying there, he meets a group of people that are going to change his life forever.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I don't own -man, but god, these characters need a happy ending.

…

"I'm not crazy."

Cross doesn't stop. When Allen refuses to move past the main gate, he grabs onto the back of Allen's hoodie and pulls him along.

"That's up for debate, stupid apprentice," Cross says.

Allen pulls an ugly face. "I'm _not crazy_ ," he says. "Nothing that warrants _abandoning me_."

Cross rolls his eyes. "Stop being so damn dramatic," he says. "I'm not _abandoning you_ , I'm just – getting you that help. That you need. That you seriously, _seriously_ need."

Allen's face twitched. "Putting me into a mental asylum is the worst idea you've ever had," he says. "I'll just leave."

"Hah," Cross says. "Yes. That'd be awesome. Try and shake up a few of these morons, would you? They're gonna _love you_ , I can already tell."

"Let me _go_!"

Cross laughs, because Cross is mean, and has never appreciated Allen's pain. Never. He's a horrible, horrible Master, and hey, maybe going into an insane asylum isn't so bad, if it means getting away from _him_.

"I don't think so, idiot apprentice," Cross says. "Okay, I think we're close enough. You go and knock on the door. Goodbye, it was nice knowing you, never come looking for me again or I'll blow your brains out."

Allen twists to stare up at his Master, eyes going almost comically wide. "You _what_?" he hisses. "You're _abandoning_ me here?"

"We've been over this," Cross says. He lets go of Allen's hoodie, but Allen just latches onto his arm, face small and pitiful. "I'm not abandoning you, I'm get you the help – stop looking like that! You might fool the gamblers, but not me!"

Allen scowled. "Don't leave me here."

"Sorry," Cross says, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "It's what's best for you."

Allen's eyes glint. "Who's going to pay off your debts?" he says. "You're a terrible gambler. Terrible. I make most of our income –"

"I don't need income," Cross interrupts, bored. "The ladies love me. Let _go_ , or get a bullet to the brain. Your choice."

Allen frowns, visibly debating between his complete lack of interest in letting go, and the probability that his Master will follow through with the threat. After a few reluctant seconds, during which Cross's hand inches closer and closer to his belt, Allen releases his death-grip on Cross's arm. Cross immediately takes a few warding steps back.

"Okay," he says. "That's great. Separation anxiety cured. Go knock on the door."

"This isn't _separation anxiety_ ," Allen says, offended. "And you're hopeless on your own. You need me there to make sure you aren't beaten to death."

"Cute," Cross drawls. "You do care."

"Of course not!" Allen says. "You're an awful person! Someday I'm going to kill you, I swear to God…"

"Now is not that day," Cross tells him. "My gun is bigger than yours, largely because you don't actually have a gun. Bullets works fine on crazy people, too."

" _I am not crazy_!"

"Sure, sure," Cross says. "See you later, kid. Maybe. Thank God I'm done with you and your bullshit. You're Koumi's problem to deal with now! Halle-fucking-lujah."

Allen makes a break for it.

Unfortunately, this one follows along with all the other attempts he's made over the past forty-eight hours. Cross grabs him by the arm and throws him bodily at the door.

Allen hits the hardwood with an _oomph_ , the air knocked out of him. He blinks dizzily at the sky for a few seconds, cursing his Master, his aching body, and whoever the hell had made that door so sturdy. He gets to his feet, shaking off his clothes and glaring at the now-vacant stretch of ground between the actual building and the main gate.

"Typical," Allen grumbles to himself, turning to the door and rolling his shoulders. When it becomes apparent that his body-toss hadn't actually been enough of an indication that someone was at the door, he rings the bell.

And waits.

Just when he's about to turn away and try another escape attempt, even though he's fairly certain it won't end well for his poor, abused body – the door opens.

"Sorry," a dead-sounding voice drones. "We at the Black Order Mental Institution are not currently taking in anymore patients; for referrals, please call our landline; for donations, please call our landline; for complaints, please call our landline –"

"Hi," Allen says.

The man blinks at him dumbly, Allen's interruption apparently having short-circuited whatever pre-rehearsed routine he's fallen into. He's short, with round glasses and stringy brown hair that's been pulled against his head in bunches. There are long, dark bags stretching out under his eyes.

"I'm Allen," Allen says, when the man doesn't say anything. "I'm not crazy."

Another blink. "That's…nice," the man says. "…for inquiries, please call the –"

Allen pulls out his most charming smile. "I'm not here to make an inquiry," he says. "My Master just dropped me off here. He said he'd already written to the Chief…?"

"Chief," the man says, and gives a full body shudder. Allen doesn't like this at all. "Letter. Chief and letter. Your Master sent the Chief a letter. Yes."

Allen stares at him. "Yes."

"Okay," the man says, and visibly pulls himself together. "I'm Johnny, by the way. Who's your Master?"

Allen eyes him warily, wondering if he'll be blamed if Johnny collapses. "Cross Marian."

That gets a reaction. Somewhere within Johnny's sleep-deprived brain, the information proves meaningful. His eyes widen slightly. "Oh," he says. "Just let me – give me a few seconds, I'll just go make a call –"

Allen watches as Johnny runs away into the dark recesses of the Black Order Mental Institute. There are more trees than he's used to, planted along the high-gated walls. He likes to think barbed wire wouldn't look out of place here, but he knows he's wrong. There's too much greenery, and it's making his poor city-adjusted eyes hurt.

The building itself is built of dark brick, and raised slightly higher than the rest of the surrounding land. It's been built on a hill, like a fortress. The roof curls upward, looking similar to a Gothic Cathedral, the with a coloured stained-glass window illuminating the image of a four-pointed symbol.

Johnny returns, and with him is a tall man spikey blond hair. Both are now wearing lab-coats, and Allen takes a small step back. _It won't be hard to escape_ , he tells himself. He just has to wait for his awful Master to skip continents, which should take about a week, and then just climb one of those trees and disappear. Hey, he's been supporting a deadweight for years. Surviving on his own can't be that bad.

"I'm Reever," the new man says, his expression similarly sleep-deprived. "Welcome to the Black Order. If you'll come with me…"

"I'm not crazy," Allen says, sighing, but he steps inside anyway. Johnny closes the door behind him, and Allen tries not to think about how it feels like he's just walked into a coffin. "No matter what my stupid Master has told you."

"I know you're not," Reever says, but it's an absent placentation, his mind clearly elsewhere. "I'll just take you to the Chief, will I?"

Allen shrugs.

The hallways to the building are narrow and tall, decorated with darkly stained wooden panelling and small paintings of angel-wings along the roof. The main door opens up onto a split-level, with a third option for straight-ahead. The stairs themselves are dark and old, the railings hand-carved and spindly enough to break.

This doesn't look like a mental institution.

"This way, then," Reever says, apparently having made up his mind without any need of Allen's input.

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Johnny asks, and Allen tries not to look alarmed. "He's not in the best of moods."

"Go back to work, Johnny," Reever says.

Johnny snaps into an awkward salute, and then winces when he pulls badly at his back-muscles. "Yessir!" he says, and then scurries down the stairs. Allen watches him go with a curious mixture of befuddlement and despair.

"I'm sorry about him," Reever says, voice bland as they move forward down the middle corridor. There are doors studded into the walls are odd places, none matching. "We've been a bit backlogged with work. And the Chief thought it'd be funny to switch all the coffee to decaf, and then – ah, here we are."

The Chief's office is smaller than Allen expected – though that may have been because everything was plastered wall-to-wall with loose sheets of paper. Allen shifts, reading what he has under the toe of his boot: _#354 PROPERTY DAMAGE CLAIM._

Allen has _such_ a bad feeling about this.

The Chief isn't what he expected, either. He's tall, with an angular face and narrow eyes. His glasses fit oddly on his face, and his white cap is skewed. Dark hair pulls down at his ears. He's sitting at his desk, mug in hand, reading a book.

Reever clears his throat pointedly.

The Chief glances up, slams the book closed and throws it unobtrusively over his shoulder. It smacks into the wall with a large _thud_ , dropping to the ground and becoming almost immediately buried in paperwork. "Reever!" he says, voice high. "I didn't hear you come in!"

"I knocked," Reever says. He hadn't. "How are those _budget forecasts_ coming along, Chief Koumi?"

Chief Koumi swallows. "…well."

Allen watches in mild fascination as Reever's fingers curl into fists, like he's physically restraining the urge to choke his employer. After a few calming breaths, he continues as though all thoughts of homicide have been placed carefully in a lead box and then dropped into the ocean. "This young man says that Cross Marian just dropped him off."

Finally, a cue Allen understands. He pulls out his best smile (two parts shy, one part hopeful) and steps out from behind Reever, waving. "Hi," he says. "I'm Allen Walker. My Master sent you a note about me…?"

Allen watches with metaphorically-baited breath as Chief Koumi visibly hesitates, glancing around at the absolute mess about the room. "A letter," he says, voice blank.

"Yes," Allen says. "A letter. I'm not entirely sure about its contents, but I'm assuming it had something to do with future employment…?"

There was no way they were ever going to find that letter in this chaos. None. Stretching the truth couldn't _hurt_.

"Employment," Chief Koumi says, and he sounds a bit strangled. "Cross Marian's apprentice."

Allen tilts his head and widens his eyes. _Keep calm_ , he tells himself. _Don't go overboard_. "Yes," he says. "At least, that's what I'm assuming. He didn't tell me much about this place."

"No," Chief Koumi says. "I expect he wouldn't. I just. We haven't received a letter from Cross Marian in a long time, and – Reever? Has anything like that crossed your desk?"

Bad move. Allen watches in delight at Reever's face darkens, the black circles under his eyes becoming more prominent. "No," he says. Chief Koumi shrinks back. "No, I _haven't_ , because everything that comes through my desk comes off _your_ desk, and _your_ desk is an absolute _black hole of_ –"

"Not in front of the intern!" Chief Koumi says, in what is obviously a last-ditch attempt at dodging out from a lecture. "You don't want to scare him off, now, do you?"

Reever's grin is feral. "If he's been living with Cross, there's nothing _I_ can do to scare him off," he says, and, well. Fair. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll mysteriously pull that letter out of your ass by tomorrow. I have _faith_ in your capabilities, Chief."

Chief Koumi grins. "Of course, Assistant Chief Reever!" he says. "And in the meantime, I expect that you'll want to settle out lovely new intern into some more – comfortable – quarters. And maybe do some introductions? I'd do it, but as you can see" – he makes a vague gesture towards the room – "I'm slightly busy."

"With finding the letter," Reever says.

"Yes," Chief Koumi says. "With finding the letter. Shoo, shoo! I've got important work to do, and not much time to do it!"

"I hope you manage to set yourself on fire," Reever says, and then turns and leaves the room. Allen stands there for an awkward few seconds, wondering if maybe he _should_ try to set the room on fire to burn any incriminating evidence. He'll have to discern how likely that sort of thing is; from the lack of sleep that practically permeates the air, he thinks he can get away with it. _Oops, forgot to stub out my cigarette properly_ – that sort of thing.

How likely is Chief Koumi going to find that letter by tomorrow?

Allen turns and walks away. He doesn't have a cigarette, though he certainly smells like them, thanks to Cross. Tipping some alcohol over those sheets should help with burning them properly, and maybe make the whole thing more authentic. Where is he going to find a cigarette lighter? At least one of the staff smokes; someone is always smoking in high-stress jobs, and from what he's witnessed, this isn't exactly a low-stress environment. If he's lucky, he can blame it all on Chief Koumi. No one ever suspects the cute, innocent intern who just arrived the day before. _Cross Marian_ seems to mean something to these people, God knows why. He can use that.

 _Yes,_ Neah whispers from the back of his mind. _Burn this place to the ground_.

…

Hi! Back again, different fandom an explanation for my absence is on my profile, if you care to look. Update schedule is every Saturday, probably around the afternoon. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and I hope to see you in the next one!

Mneme


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man (probably for the best, seeing as my drawing skills are eeeh)

 **Edited** 27/03/2017 - fixed Komui's name!

...

...

Much to Neah's disappointment, the actual act of burning down the Chief's office does not actually take place – largely because Allen simply can't get away.

Oh, there are cigarettes and lighters aplenty down in the basement-level of the mansion. Everything down there is dark and cramped; Allen feels ants crawling under his skin just thinking about spending an extended period of time down there. He thinks he can see why Johnny had seemed so jumpy. The air is choked with smoke, and the lights – while bright – only illuminate the right half of the room. _Night-vision experiments_ , Reever dismisses on his first quick tour. _We've had that going for almost six months, now. Not sure when the Chief's finally going to give up, but hey, we've cut down our energy usage by thirty percent_.

Allen's room is on the top level, because he's the newest addition to a bunch of certifiable sociopaths, and no one likes climbing two loads of stairs at four in the morning. As an intern, his jobs include: _Answer the door. File these papers. Press the Big Red Button if you start seeing black spots on the edges of your vision. No, not from exhaustion. They'll be yellow around the edges and – look, you'll know them when you see them, okay? Also, here's a fire extinguisher. Press green for red fire, blue for green fire, and if you see black fire, just run. There's no saving anything from black fire._

Allen nods and smiles and tries not to cry from confusion.

Cross's letter never actually turns up.

Reever gives him a vaguely apologetic look the next day, when Allen is holed up in his room and most certainly _not_ hyperventilating because he'd been unable to sneak down and set the room on fire. Security cameras are annoying. So are the plethora of people that seem to inhabit the ground floor.

Neah is very disappointed in him. He'd been looking forward to destroying something.

"I'm sorry," Reever says, drawing him down both flights of stairs and guiding him around to meet up with Johnny, the sleep-deprived slave, who is slobbering all over a bunch of research notes with eyes glued tight. "It seems that the Chief" – he growls out his name like a dog. _Do not be alarmed,_ Allen tells himself – "Has actually managed to misplace your important document. Don't worry, it's sure to turn up sooner or later. Everything always does, in his case."

"It's okay," Allen says, heart pounding double-time in his chest. Cons are easy. Long cons are a little bit trickier, because he's had less practice at them, but he can manage. But the stakes have never been this high before. _Freedom_ has never seemed like such a tangible thing.

 _Just until Master gets out of the country_ , Allen thinks. _I'll just stick around until I'm sure he's not going to drop-kick me back into the door_.

"Hey," Reever says, poking Johnny's cheek. "Wake up."

"Ngghn," Johnny says. "G'waym'tired."

" _Hey_ ,"Reever says again, with all the patience of a man seventy-two hours out of sleep. " _Wake. Up_."

"M'wake!" Johnny snaps to attention, spine going nimrod straight. One of his eyes refuses to open, so thick to sleep that it's been sealed tightly shut. He ticks his cheek a few times in a general attempt, and then just gives up.

"Good," Reever says, completely disregarding Johnny's slightly desperate look. "I'm placing the new intern under your supervision. His name is Allen, and he's affiliated in some way or form to General Cross Marian, so I'd like it if he weren't eaten by radioactive slugs like our _last casual_. Okay?"

Johnny looks like he's about to fall down and brain himself with the floor. "Okay," he says.

"Good," Reever says, and then he turns and wanders away. Allen watches him go wistfully, fingers sliding over the lighter he'd just filched from Reever's coat-pocket. He can still go upstairs and light the place on fire. The letter is bound to turn up sooner or later.

"So," Johnny says, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Do you want some…coffee? Because I could go for coffee."

"I thought everything had been switched to decaf," Allen says, still smiling.

Johnny gives a full-body twitch. "Yes," he says. "Yes, it has been. But it still tastes like coffee. Sort of. It's got that lovely, coffee taste. Sort of. It's better than nothing, okay? _It's better than nothing_."

Allen takes a few tactical steps back, strategically placing a desk between them. "Yes," he says. "I could go for some coffee."

Johnny brightens. "Good. It's just over here. We're expecting the Chief to give up on his social experimentation when his own stash runs out. We've launched three raids, but all so far have led to failure. Don't worry, though." Johnny turns around to give Allen a reassuring look. Allen is not reassured. "We won't stop until we succeed."

Allen waits a beat. "Yes," he says, when he's sure Johnny is waiting for an actual response. "I greatly look forward to that day."

Johnny smiles at him. It's wide, honest, and completely deranged. "There are so many pretty sparkly lights," he says, blinking up at the ceiling.

Allen clears his throat. "Coffee."

Johnny jumps. "What? _Where_?"

"Coffee," Allen says. _He's drunk_ , he tells himself. _Think of it like talking to a drunk person. Sleep deprivation is no different_. "You said you were getting some?"

"The decaf, right?" Johnny says, looking almost genuinely alarmed. "Not the synthetic stuff that Tapp is peddling out? That's illegal. And evil tasting. Reever said he'd ship off the next person he caught drinking it to the Asian Branch."

"The decaf," Allen says, patiently. "Is there actually a black-market coffee trade scheme going on?"

Johnny gives him a suddenly shifty look. "…no."

Allen can almost smell the money.

"Of course not," he says, as soothingly as he is able. "Now – could you tell me a bit about what you're doing down here? My Master didn't really explain – well, anything – when he dropped me off."

Johnny shrugs. "We research things," he says. He stops at a table settled against the far wall, almost collapsing underneath the mounds of paper, glass and objects of unidentifiable origin.

"I can see that," Allen says, voice patient. "What _things_?"

Johnny shoves off half the tables content onto the floor with unexpected violence, muttering darkly to himself as he rummages through what was left. "People should know _better_ than to defile the – um, what things? Crazy people." Obviously.

Allen's smile grows stiff. He's lucky that the room is at half-light, because even though he's been practicing cons for years, he can't quite escape the feeling that these people have more to them than they seem. A slip-up, he thinks, could be disastrous. "What kind of crazy people?"

"What kind of – oh, right," Johnny says, blinking at him dizzily from behind his wide glasses. "I'm supposed to show you around, aren't I?"

"Yes, I think so."

Johnny frowned down at the table. "Huh."

"Crazy people?" Allen prods. Gently does it, he tells himself.

Johnny brightens, thumb caressing lovingly across the top of the coffee machine. It is old, and looks like it was cobbled together from spare parts found lying around on the various benches within the immediate vicinity. "Yes, crazy people. You know, the _Apostles_." He gives Allen a wide wink with his only working eye, like he was referring to some pre-arranged code that Allen had never received.

Allen does a few bouts of mental gymnastics within the course of three seconds. "Yes," he says. "The Apostles. Do you want some coffee or not?"

"Aah," Johnny says, entire body relaxing at the mere thought of caffeine. He presses a button, and an unhealthy-looking sludge spurts out from the tap and into the cup.

Johnny gives a small whimper.

"It's…" he says, turning around to Allen with a trembling mouth. "It's…"

Allen clears his throat, backing further away. _No, go closer_ , Neah urges.

 _Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP_!

"It's BROKEN!"

For a single moment throughout the entire room, there is dead silence. Then the panic starts.

Allen quickly ducks underneath one of the tables that looks study enough to hold under someone being thrown into it, watching in fascination as things just seem to completely and utterly break down. Papers are flung into the air, the lighter worktables are upturned, and anarchy reigns supreme for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, during which Allen is forced to abandon his protective table in favour of lurking next to a fluorescent fish-tank that he _really hopes_ isn't radioactive. An alarm goes off, blearing a high-picked _Beep-Beep-Beep_ throughout the facility, as orange and red lights appear from underneath mounds of paperwork and start blinking fast enough to cause some of the less strong-willed assistants to feint.

"ATTENTION PLEASE!"

Allen glances over to the top of the staircase, where someone has opened the door and is using a megaphone to try and regain some semblance of order. From the way things seem to get _worse_ , he thinks that this probably isn't the best plan available.

"ATTENTION ALL LAB MONKEYS!" the voice yells again, barely audible above the incessant noise of the alarm and the hysteric shouting of everyone else.

Reever appears behind the first figure, knocking him out from where he had been silhouetted by the incoming light. "Oh, for the love of – EVERYBODY SHUT UP!"

An immediate hush.

Komui clears his throat, grabbing the megaphone back from Reever's unimpressed hands. "AHEM," he says.

" _Down with the false king!"_ a large man with spikey hair yells. There is an immediate roar of approval.

"WAIT!" Komui shouts. "NO, MY MINIONS, WAIT! CEASE AND DESIST!"

Reever kicks him out the door and turns to address the mob, not even bothering with the megaphone. "If you all don't shut up," he said, voice ringing loud. "No one gets paid for a month!"

"We haven't been paid for two!" someone points out. Immediately, the lab descends into a shouting match, everyone calling out their own personal grievances all at once. Allen is more than a little disturbed to hear most of them, especially from the man who's waving his prosthetic leg in the air, screaming bloody murder about tax rebates and undercooked cabbage.

Reever looks more than a little ticked off. He descends a single step, slamming the door shut in Komui's face just as the Chief makes an attempt at re-entering the fray. "I have been patient," he says. There is an immediate outcry of disquiet. "I have _been patient_ ," Reever repeats. "But there is a line. A line in the sand that _cannot be crossed_. And this is one of them."

 _This is the most fun we've had in YEARS_ , Neah says, laughing. _Hey, go punch someone, see if it'll incite a riot. Or, MORE of a riot!_

Allen let out a hissing breath. _You are NOT HELPING._

"This broken coffee maker shall not go unpunished!" Reever says, pounding his fist into the air. "Make a list of demands! We shall take back this Asylum, if it's the last thing we do!"

Allen stares at him uneasily, wondering just where this is headed. Clearly, there's something wrong with this place, if a broken coffee maker for _decaf_ can throw the whole place into a full-scale revolt. The unwashed masses – literally, Allen notes as he glances around – were clearly being whipped into some kind of frenzy. He doesn't want to be here when the tide breaks, and things go south of hell.

"Psst!"

"Let us TAKE BACK THE COFFEE!"

" _TAKE BACK THE COFFEE!"_

"Hey. You. With the weird hair and the creepy eye scar."

"Let us TAKE BACK OUR BACKPAY!"

" _TAKE BACK OUR BACKPAY_!"

" _PSST_."

Allen glances back, and then does a double-take, eyes growing wide. There's a boy hidden not-very-well behind a rack of scuba gear and rough chunks of concrete. He's taller than Allen, who notes this with no little amount of resentment, with ridiculously bright red hair and an eyepatch, of all things. His clothing hangs slightly long off his skinny frame, all done in black edged with silver.

The teenager makes a series of complicated hand gestures that boil down to: Come Over Here.

Allen very politely shakes his head and goes back to watching with avid interest as Reever successfully manipulates the mob away from freeform murder and into something that could reasonably intimidate Komui into giving into their demands. Or he's just gone crazy with bloodlust, which considering that he's begun to cackle manically at the top of the stairs, isn't that far of a stretch.

" _PSST_!"

Allen's eye ticks, and he gives in and storms over to the stranger, careful to stick to the walls and not make eye contact with any of the raving madmen who inhabit the main floor. "What do you want?"

"Finally," the pirate says, and then grabs Allen's hand and pulls him behind the chunks of concrete. "Allen Walker, I presume?"

Allen sighs, easily detangling his hand from the boy's and folding them across his chest. He's thankful for the thick pads of his gloves, which protect his skin from any sort of unwanted contact. "Who are you?"

"Lavi Bookman, at your service," he says with a small bow. "History lover, omnipotent soothsayer, and current patient of this fine establishment."

"That's very nice," Allen says. "Excuse me, I want to go see if they've started feeding upon each other's flesh."

"Don't be silly," Lavi says. "They're nowhere near that stage yet. Come on, I've got things I want to show you."

Allen shakes his head, still smiling. "It was a pleasure to meet you," he says. "But please explain why I shouldn't report a breakout? You _did_ say you were a patient, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes," Lavi says, taking something out of the sleeve of his jacket with a flourish of his hand. It's an unsealed envelope, the inked handwriting sickeningly familiar. Allen's stomach gives an unpleasant lurch, though he sticks his smile grimly in place. "I'm a patient. Just like you."

...

...

Thank you so much to **jy24** and **1over7** for reviewing, as well as all the people who liked and favourited! I hope that this chapter entertains you as much as the first one did :)

See you next week!

Mneme


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer** : I do not own -man. If I did, none of these characters would have suffered like they did in canon, which would have been a crying shame. Clearly, I'm far too soft :P

…

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Lavi grins. "Of course not," he says, flipping open the envelope and taking out the folded pages inside. Even from where Allen is standing, he can see the alcohol stains. " _To That Brat Koumi, Chief of whatever, blah blah…I'm forced to write to you because my idiot apprentice is crazy. I'm sick of taking care of the voices in his head –"_

"Just one voice!" Allen says, incensed.

Lavi's face is one of pure triumph. " _…who are telling him to kill evil demons._ "

Neah's laughing at him. Allen can hear it echoing around his skull, like the annoying buzz that came with standing too close to a wasp's nest.

"That was a misunderstanding," Allen says. "Once."

Lavi unfolds the second piece of paper, because of course there's a second piece of paper. "This is all the people you've tried to kill," he says, showing Allen the hand-drawn chart. Allen is almost impressed. It's colour-coded and everything; Cross must have been really drunk, to put this much effort into something. "In the green. And you've got three confirmed kills, which I find _interesting_."

"Is this an attempt at blackmail?" Allen says, folding his arms across his chest.

"No!" Lavi says, tucking the papers out of sight before Allen can grab them. "I just found this piece of interesting news that pertained to the new intern, and I decided to share. Now, if you decide to do me a few… _favours_ , after this, well. That's totally unrelated."

Allen's smile is sweet. "Is it?" he says, holding up his hands in a sign of peace. "Well. That sounds reasonable, _friend_."

"I'm so glad you said that," Lavi says. "Come on, then. Let me introduce you to the other…inmates, shall we say. They're all _very_ excited to meet you."

Allen freezes, though he keeps his smile in place through sheer force of will. How many people know that he's lying? Damn, damn, damn, this is exactly the sort of situation he's been trying to avoid. Lavi knowing is bad enough, especially since he has proof, but more witnesses? More witnesses who are also _insane_?

Neah is no help. _Kill them_ , he suggests, like it's a viable option. Allen ignores him, because ignoring Neah is usually for the best, unless he's talking about demons. That's the only time Allen has ever heard him be serious, and that's saying something, considering he _never shuts up_ anything else.

"Don't worry," Lavi says in a very worrying tone of voice. "They're all lovely people. Well fed, well adjusted. A few body counts here and there, but hey, you can't exactly judge, now, _can you_?"

Allen…is not amused. "We're in the middle of a riot," he says, pointing to where the scientists have gathered together to try and break down the door. Allen assumes that Koumi has taken the sensible precaution of barricading the other side, because they're going at it full-force with a battering ram with no visible result. "In case you haven't noticed."

"The frenzied screaming does give it away a bit," Lavi says. "But don't worry, that's not important. Besides, the cells – oops, I mean, _rooms_ – are down here, so we don't need to go upstairs. Isn't that great?"

Allen refuses to show any sort of reaction, even though the thought of having narrowly escaped having to be _locked underground_ for an indefinite period of time makes him want to hurl. Seriously, what had his Master been thinking? Alcohol has clearly rotted his brain, that's all Allen can think of, because even his brief moments of sobriety are peppered with crazy ideas. Like _locking Allen up in a mental institution_ , when he certainly isn't crazy. A criminal, yes, he'll accept, but crazy? That's almost insulting.

Besides, even if he _is_ crazy (and that's a big if) he's offended at the implication that he can't hide it well enough to decent society. Cross should know him better than that.

But that isn't the point. Lavi is still looking at him for an answer.

"That's _wonderful_ ," Allen gushes, all sparkles and sunshine. C'mon, you can fake anything, Walker. "I can't _wait_ to meet them."

"Don't worry," Lavi says. "They'll be _so_ excited to meet you. I've told them all about the new intern – the last one didn't last too long, they were so disappointed."

Allen tries not to flatten out his voice, but it's hard. "I've heard stories."

"These goons exaggerate things," Lavi says with a dismissive wave of his hand, walking further into the darkness like a Bong villain. He's certainly got the look for it. Also, he's kind of offended on behalf of everyone he's already met that Lavi's calling them "goons" – "grunts" he would have accepted, considering how painfully overworked and underpaid they were, but "goons"? Johnny had been perfectly coh – had been _almost_ coherent. "There was barely any brain damage. He was let go for personal reasons."

"Yeah, PTSD," Allen says.

"Don't be silly," Lavi says. "If that was cited as a reason, they'd have _never_ let him go."

 _This place is a bad place_ , Neah says. _I say we burn it to the ground and then make a run for it. C'mon, kid, it'll be so_ easy _…_

 _Not talking to you not talking to you not talking to you_ , Allen thinks.

Walking to the corner of the room is surprisingly easy, considering that everyone has gathered in a large mass of seething rage and anger in the centre of the room, leaving the edges clear to be traversed. They're also in the 'night' section of the lab, so the lights don't work. Not that the lights in the normal section of the lab are working all too wonderfully at the moment – Allen thinks that the problems have something to do with the way some of the scientists are climbing ladders to unscrew the bulbs and throw them at the door, but he isn't going to tell them that.

"This way," Lavi says, ducking instinctively as a lightbulb goes horribly off-course and smashes into the doorframe just to the side of his head. "And, um. Try not to get hit by any flying projectiles."

"How often does this happen?" Allen says, trying not to sound uneasy. Maybe he would have been safer in a cell – oh, sorry, _room_ – after all.

"Every few months," Lavi says. "Depends on whether the Chief's been making things _truly_ unbearable. One time, when he was trying to figure out who kept on stealing his stash of chocolate, he radiated it –"

"He did _what_?"

"Harmless! Totally non-lethal! Anyway, so he radiated it, and then got really pissed when half the guys down here started upchucking their guts the next day, and –"

Allen has a headache. "How long have you…" think, think, diplomacy don't fail me now "…been here?"

 _Oh, genius_ , Neah says.

 _Shut up_ , Allen thinks.

"A while," Lavi says, which tells Allen nothing. "Okay, so just…don't step on that, just jump – jumping usually works. There's some really – well, unstable – things in these boxes, and –"

Allen steps on a rubber-duck and winces at the ear-splitting _squeak_ that it produces. Lavi lets out a packed whoosh of breath and whirls around, rubber mallet appearing from _out of nowhere_ to almost brain Allen. It's a good thing Allen's had enough time figuring out when something's going to hit him (he's been on the run from more than a few angry mobs in his lifetime, _thank you Cross_ ), or that would have smashed into his head and possibly ruptured his brain. Also, killed him. There are cracks in the wall. Well, more cracks then there had been before. Allen is really, really glad he's not stuck down here 24/7 – though considering the increasingly vocal threats of death and dismemberment coming from the main workspace, maybe he didn't put enough thought into this "pretending to be an intern" thing.

The hallway opens up, and it's almost blinding, the amount of light that filters through the area. There are windows – _actual windows_ , hello backup emergency escape – locked tight around the upper levels of the room, spreading out so that he can see they level with the grass. They'd be tricky to get to without some sort of ladder, but Allen thinks he can balance some of the boxes of _unstable material_ and climb up on those –

Lavi is still walking. Allen hurries to catch up, and he's so thankful for the unexpected mode of escape that he almost doesn't notice the doors.

There are – too many to count. They trail along a long wall at even distances, reminding Allen uncomfortably of a prison. Not that he's ever been to a prison. Under his own name, anyway. The downside to having a facial scar and white hair – being easily recognisable in a lineup.

The door all have numbers on them, set into exposed brick and looking ominous as anything. At least there aren't any visible bars anywhere he can see.

"Come on, we'll go through my room," Lavi says, taking Allen down the hallway to the door marker '21'. "Out back is the common room. It's a lot more comfortable than anything those poor schmucks outside have to deal with, and we have a coffee maker that isn't decaf. They tried to steal it from us, but Lenalee drop-kicked one of them and Yuu glared at the other one and – well, let's just say they didn't try anything again. We _are_ running low on beans, though, so we might need to appeal to Koumi soon."

"Is this door supposed to be unlocked?" Allen says.

Lavi laughs at him, kneeling down and poking at it at the rather impressive looking lock that's been fastened to the front door. Allen thinks he could open it, but he isn't sure how long it would take him. He notes the lack of overly complicated locks on any of the other doors.

"I have a key," Lavi says, and opens the door.

The room beyond is almost impressive in how little space there is. Even considering the limited working-space to begin with, every single nook and cranny has been stuffed with a wide variety of books. Allen reads _Pharmacy Through the Ages (Volume VI)_ , _Collecting Buttons for Beginners_ , and _The Socioeconomic Implications of WWI_ before his eyes begin to glaze over at the sheer amount of information overload. He can't even see a bed, that's how far gone Lavi is in this madness.

"Nice room," Allen says, stepping inside and watching with sharp eyes as Lavi closes the door behind him. Maybe following someone who has _openly admitted_ to be psychologically disturbed isn't the best life-choice Allen has ever made, but he's confident in his ability to take care of himself. He can take Lavi. Probably. That hammer wouldn't be fun to go against, though, considering Allen doesn't have any weapons available to him – other than the books, of course. Some of them look heavy enough to do some serious damage. Though he suspects that Lavi would never forgive him if he got blood on the collection.

"Thank you!" Lavi says, bouncing through the stacks of precarious piles with practiced ease. "There's a door back here – oh, mind the atlas collection, you don't want that falling on top of you – here it is!"

 _His back is turned_ , Neah urges.

Allen's face ticks, though he tries not to react, even _if_ Lavi can't see him. _Not a chance_.

 _It would be so easy_ , Neah says, almost mournfully.

 _Is he a demon_?

 _Why do you always do this to me_? Neah says. _Why do you always ask that question?_ Is it a demon? _Every time, you ask this question, and –_

 _Is he?_

A sullen silence revibrates around his mind. Allen tries not to think about how empty his head feels without Neah's constant chattering about murderous plans and threats of violence.

… _no_.

 _Then I'm not going to kill him_.

Neah huffs. _But he's RIGHT THERE_ …

"I'm not going to kill him," Allen growls.

"That's the spirit!" Lavi says, and then he's opened a door in the back and vanished before Allen can properly process that.

Allen stands there for a long few seconds, blinking. Then he follows Lavi out into the common room.

It stretches out for as long as the doorways do, though the area is significantly wider, and there's actual couches with people on them. The light isn't natural; there are long beams of exposed fluorescent panelling, one of which is blinking irritatingly. Lavi is already half-way across the room and he's going towards the only people Allen can see. Two of them, actually. Male and female, close to his age, older by a few years. Female: open posture, leg crossed over knee, face smiling and relaxed. Male: scowl as big as his face, looks ready to kill anyone who goes within three feet of his long, long hair.

"Lenalee! Yuu!"

"What have I told you, stupid rabbit!"

"Lavi, please stop antagonising him."

Lavi grins. "Come and see what I found," he says, flourishing his hands in Allen's general direction. "The new intern. Isn't that great?"

Eyes up, shoulders back, smile out.

 _Showtime_.

…

 **A/N** : I LOVE EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED OR FAVOURITED OR FOLLOWED! Thank you so much to **jy24** , **IncredibleIdiosyncrasies** , **waterlit** , **1over7** and **Silence in the Rain** for reviewing :)

Any suggestions for other exorcists in this story would be welcome! …I'm having a bit of trouble choosing, haha. This is a lot of fun to write, and I hope you'll stick around for more :)

See you next week!

Mneme


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer** : I still don't own D. Gray-man, much to my dismay.

 **Edited** 27/03/2017 - fixed Komui's name!

...

...

It descends into a brawl five minutes in, because of course it does.

Kanda just makes him so _mad_ , though. Good manners cost nothing, and anyway, who had a bamboo practice shinai lying around to bash someone over the head with? That seemed a bit counter-productive, this being a mental asylum and all. Shouldn't weapons be banned? Just being here kind of denotes a certain level of danger to other people.

"My name is Lenalee Li," the girl who's patching him up says, bent down with a cool rag to press against his forehead. Kanda is off to the other side of the room with Lavi, looking almost rabid. It takes zero imagination for Allen to picture how Kanda got here, and it involves numerous bodies and lots of blood. At least when Allen kills someone, he's saving their souls. "Komui Li is my brother. It's a pleasure to meet you, circumstances aside."

Allen blinks up at her, kind of fuzzy. It isn't fair that Kanda had the advantage in weapons, even if it became all but useless the moment Allen had gotten in close enough to do some real damage with his fists. He hopes he gave the shinai splinters with his hard head.

Neah is proud of him. That makes all of this inexplicably worse.

"Your brother put you in here?" he says, because his mouth isn't properly connected to his brain and basic politeness isn't working very well for him at the moment. Damnit, he was supposed to be _nice_ and _friendly_ and _trustworthy_ and –

His head really, really hurts. He hopes Kanda has bruises. He hopes that they're sensitive and _painful_.

Lenalee doesn't take offense, though, because clearly she's some sort of angel, dubious familial connections aside. She's really pretty, too, with hair almost as long as the jerk's, and lovely eyes. Allen hopes his eyes are half as lovely.

"He's just worried about me," Lenalee says, smile bright. She presses the rag hard enough against Allen's forehead that he feels a sting of pain. "Oh, sorry," she says when he yelps.

"It's fine," Allen says, because Allen is a _nice person_ , he is, no matter what Neah says. And Neah is saying quite a lot, at the moment, because Neah doesn't know when to shut up.

 _You should have got him straight in the jaw_ , he says, cackling. Neah has a terrible cackle. Allen can just picture his grin, a slash of red against a shadowed backdrop. _But you got some good hits in on the stomach, and close to his throat. I didn't think you had it in you, but you do!_

Shut up shut up, Allen thinks. "Shut up."

Lenalee's eyes narrow, and her face loses some of its shininess. Allen blinks pitifully up at her. "Excuse me?"

Two options here, Walker. Neither look good. He casts a nervous glance at Lavi, who is still in the process of extracting the bamboo shinai from Kanda's death-grip. He is failing. He is failing rather badly.

"I wasn't talking to you," Allen says, and tries very valiantly not to throw up all over his shoes. Or Lenalee's shoes. She has really nice boots. Allen wonders how difficult it would be to get nice boots just like hers.

Lenalee's frown doesn't lighten, and Allen's stomach drops somewhere below his not-as-nice-as-Lenalee's shoes. "Oh," he says, clearing his throat. "Lavi mentioned that he had…well, mentioned me to you. Before."

Lenalee nods. "Yeah," she says, and then kills Allen's hope swiftly and without mercy. "You're the new intern. We lost the last one after a series of fires that – well, let's just say that no one came out of the experience happier for it. The only good thing that came out of that whole mess was my brother banning strippers from the work area – the cop turned out to be a call-guy, apparently."

"So he didn't discuss…anything else," Allen says, vainly trying for calm and basically ending up somewhere between pathetic and desperate. This is a good thing! They don't know he's supposed to be crazy!

Lenalee shook her head, pigtails flying out around her in a dramatic halo of hair. Allen is once again envious, even though he knows from Cross's constant complaining of the utter evils of hair-care. Brushing, trimming, layering, colouring (though absolutely _no one_ is supposed to know about that One Time that Definitely Didn't Happen, What Are You Talking About). Allen had suffered the most, though, because there had been no one else to go buy hair-care products at three in the morning when the streets were crawling with thugs and prostitutes. Not that he has anything against prostitutes. Some of the best people he's ever met are prostitutes. Er.

"I'm sorry," she says, and she sounds so sincere that Allen's addled brain forgives her instantly. He vows silently to never become concussed again. "But Lavi likes his big, dramatic reveals. I'm surprised he even told us you were the new intern – though Kanda might have had something to do with that…"

In unison, they both turn to survey how Lavi is faring against Kanda. They are now both on the floor, and Lavi is wailing in what appears to be utter agony. The shinai, at least, is gone – Allen doesn't know where, and he can't see it anywhere close to them – but Kanda makes up for the lack of sword-like object by…basically strangling Lavi with his hair. Allen is almost impressed, before he realises that he doesn't like Kanda and doesn't want to be impressed by anything he does.

"That looks like it hurts," Allen says, gesturing vaguely. "Do you want to…go save his life?"

"Oh, Kanda won't _kill_ him," Lenalee says, smiling like he's just said something funny. Allen blinks at her, and then glances back at where Lavi is struggling desperately for air, arms windmilling out around him in a vain attempt to catch Kanda off guard. Kanda's smile is _vicious_. Lavi's face is turning blue.

"Are you sure?" Allen says doubtfully.

"Oh, yes," Lenalee says, the very picture of unconcern. "Now, please, what was Lavi _supposed_ to tell us?"

Allen sighs. Neah laughs at him, because Neah has no concept of what it is to be in pain. Someday, Allen is going to find a way to strangle him, and he hopes that Neah suffers as much as Lavi is suffering now. "I'm not very comfortable talking about it," he says. "It's personal."

Lenalee purses her lips and gives him a narrow-eyed look that makes Allen want to scoot over to the wall and hide his head in shame. He's impressed, because no one has made him feel shame in a very, very long time. "How about," she says, thinking out loud. "I trade you. A story for a story. I'm guessing that you're not one of the normal interns."

"It's _personal_ ," Allen says, a little desperately.

"Not anymore, if Lavi knows," Lenalee says. "If I know what he's got over your head, I can help you. I'm very…good, at reigning these boys in."

Lavi is now twitching spasmodically. His arms have gone limp. "Really," Allen says.

"I'll prove it," Lenalee says, and she's smiling at him like he's being silly. "And then you can tell me, and I'll personally _make sure_ that nothing bad happens to you during the duration of your stay here. Deal?"

Allen regards her frankly for a few seconds, kind of horrified. He's been out-conned. This concussion-thing is _never happening again_. He feels so worthless. "Deal," he says, a broken man.

Lenalee's smile widens. Then she turns to where Kanda is grimly finishing Lavi off and gets to her feet. "I'll be back in a second," she says.

Allen watches her go, feeling vaguely hopeless. Neah's stopped making ugly comments long enough to watch Lenalee set to work, so he's got a quiet headspace for a few minutes, which is…well. He almost wishes he had something to distract him from – from _that_.

Lenalee returns a few minutes later, dusting her hands together and smiling wide. Allen no longer questions her brother's decision to place her here, because he's certain that she could do _so much damage_ on the outside world.

Kanda skulks off to who-knows-where, opening and door and disappearing into the darkness like a brooding vampire with really nice hair. He is nursing visible bruises across his body, as well as a black eye and a bloody nose. Allen and Lavi are only responsible for the bruises.

Lavi is relatively intact, and he stays, which makes him a braver man than Allen had initially given him credit for. He's slightly worse for ware, and his eyes are sort of unfocused, though when he talks he still sounds annoying enough to grate Allen's ears.

"Lenalee, my love, thank you for saving me!"

Lenalee's smile doesn't change, though her eyes do crinkle upward slightly. "Of course, Lavi," she says. "Now, what can you tell me about our newest…intern."

"Oh!" Lavi says, turning to Allen. "Of course, I forgot" – his face is bashful, and it doesn't fool either of them – "Lenalee, this is Allen Walker. He's managed to squirm out from under your brother's meticulous paperwork skills and scored a job instead of a padded cell. I'm impressed, myself. Wish I'd thought of that."

"Your grandfather brought you here directly," Lenalee says absently, studying Allen with a slight frown. "You were supposed to be a patient, here?"

Allen ducks his head and stares at his feet. You can still be sweet and charming, he tells himself. It can't be that hard. You've played poker in worse situations. "Yes," he says. "My Master – Cross Marian – brought me to the gates. He sent a letter, but Lavi apparently…acquired it before the Chief could, and here I am."

Lenalee is still staring at him. "Here you are," she repeats thoughtfully. "Cross Marian, you said? Lavi, let me see that letter."

Lavi adopts a tragic expression. "I'm afraid I left it in my room, Lenalee my love, so –"

"Go get it," Lenalee says, sweet as anything. Lavi disappears so fast Allen can almost see the puff of smoke spelling out 'NOPE' left behind. "Now, Allen. I believe I promised you a story? An eye for an eye, and all that."

Allen lets out a sigh. "I don't suppose I have a choice, now."

Lenalee places a hand on his shoulder, helping him stand up and leading him over to the couches. They're very comfortable and thick, and Allen allows himself to sink deeper into the fabric than he would usually permit during polite conversation. It's been a long day, and he isn't even sure it's lunchtime. His stomach thinks it's time for lunch, of course, but his stomach _always_ thinks it's time for lunch. And dinner. And breakfast.

What was his point again?

Oh, yes. It can't be more than eleven, by his estimate. Eleven in the morning, and he's already witnessed what appears to be a revolution against the oppressive upper classes, has been blackmailed by a total stranger, and got a concussion. He's only got up to go from here.

"I know this is very strange," Lenalee says, sitting next to him and patting his back in a consoling manner. Lenalee is officially his favourite. "But really, this place is quite welcoming. My brother makes sure that we're taken care of."

"The minions outside just started an uprising over a lack of coffee," Allen says.

Lenalee has the grace to look embarrassed. "Well," she says. "I love my brother very much, but he sometimes is rather…eccentric, when it comes to his experiments. He feels that giving them something to complain about will focus everyone on hating him, rather than hating their jobs."

"I think they hate both," Allen says.

"We're getting off track," Lenalee says, voice gentle. "I just want you to know that this is a safe place for you. We're not here to hurt you."

"I have a _concussion_ ," Allen says.

Lenalee ignores him. "So please, feel free to ask any of us about anything you need. We're always happy to help, especially if you're one of us."

"…us."

"Well, you were sent here because you attacked people, isn't that right?" Lenalee says. "That's what happened to all of us. My brother was very upset about it, of course, but there was nothing to be done."

Allen frowns. "Why _did_ he send you here?"

"Do you want _me_ to answer that, Lenalee my love?" Lavi says, popping back behind them and scaring ten years off Allen's life. He doesn't wait for Lenalee to respond. "This lovely lady thinks she can fly."

Lenalee's eyes flare. "I don't _think_ ," she says. "I _know_."

"Komui caught her practicing off a twelve-story balcony and freaked out, just a little," Lavi says. "At least, that's what I've heard. He checked her into the Institute, and then freaked out some more than get himself employed here."

"Yes, yes, very tragic," Lenalee snaps, grabbing the letter out of his hands and scanning over the first line. Allen debates on whether he can grab it from her and stuff it into his mouth fast enough, and then concludes rather sadly that he isn't game enough to try. "I'm sorry, Allen, I haven't been thinking. is it okay if I read these? I know they're private."

Allen stares at her.

"I won't read them if you don't want me to," Lenalee clarifies.

"…I'd rather you not."

"Though you _will_ tell me why your Master sent you here," Lenalee adds.

Allen nods. Lenalee gives him a look of approval and then gives him the letters. Lavi squawks, but Allen is too busy staring at the envelope to notice. _Komui Li_ is written in surprisingly neat cursive. Allen hates that handwriting with every single fibre of his being.

Careful to keep the letters away from Lavi's grabby hands, Allen puts his hand into his pocket and pulls out the lighter he had smuggled and clicks it open.

Then he sets them on fire.

...

...

 **A/N** : Goddamnit I needed those letters for the future, but Allen makes a _very convincing argument_ in favour of destroying them. Ah, well. Also could you guess that Kanda's my favourite? No? But I gave him _ten whole seconds_ of screen time, what are you talking about?

ANYWAY! Thanks so much to everyone who liked and favourited: SPECIAL thanks to **jy24** , **1over7** , **waterlit** and **xXxPhantomxXx** for reviewing. You're all wonderful :)

See you next week!

Mneme


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D Gray-man, unfortunately.

 **Edited** 27/03/2017 - fixed Komui's name!

...

...

"Soft pretzels. With extra salt, please."

"Marshmallows! Ooh, and a box of matches."

"Maybe some painting supplies? Watercolours, if you wouldn't mind, and a nice canvas book."

"Can you get me _gunpowder_? And balloons. Ooh, and strawberries."

"Hn. Soba."

Allen throws up his hands in an act of total surrender, backing away from the three mental institution patients who are crowding around him like hungry sharks. It's more than a little intimidating, and during his time with Cross it hadn't been unusual for him to face down ten burly creditors while his idiot Master was off gambling away _more_ money.

"Allen," Lenalee says, smiling widely. Allen tries to back up some more, only his back's hit the wall and he's got nowhere to go. "Please, we need these things."

"You need soft pretzels for…what, exactly?" Allen says, trying to keep up a happy smile and failing slightly. He rallies, but it's six in the morning, and he's never been much of a morning person – especially after a night of scrambling around checking inventory rates and dodging radioactive piles of goop. They'd hosed everyone down afterwards in a containment chamber that Allen isn't _really_ sure should be in a mental institution, but by now he's figured that they're probably two completely separate groups who are just mooching off each other's government funding. It's the only thing that makes sense.

"We'll go _insane_ ," Lavi says, waving his arms dramatically.

Allen does not give the obvious answer, but only because it's too easy. It's no fun unless he has to work for it.

"Our head chef – Jerry, you might have met him" – Allen has met Jerry. Allen briefly considered having a love affair with Jerry, because his food is some of the best he's ever tasted, and he'll make _as much as Allen wants_ – "Has decided to put us all on diets. No processed food. It's supposed to – balance out our minds. Or something."

"I'm sure anything that Jerry makes tastes wonderful," Allen says loyally.

"It tastes fine," Lavi says, like that's not the point. Allen doesn't understand these people. Well, of course he doesn't, because he's _not insane_. No matter what Cross says. Not that it matters what Cross says, now, because those letters are completely destroyed, and the only way Komui is going to know about it is if Cross actually deigns to visit. Which isn't going to happen in a million years, so Allen is as good as set. "I just missed processed food. Seriously, can you imagine a life without soft pretzels? Because I'm living it, and it hurts."

Of course, Lavi could always decide to blab. Allen isn't too concerned, however; much as he _hates_ that bastard Kanda, he's gained some fairly useful pieces of intelligence watching him beat up Lavi. Namely, weak spots. If he stands in front of Lavi with a stolen shinai and a maniacal expression, he's pretty sure he can make Lavi feint from psychological torture alone.

"Give me a list," Allen says, resigned. Also, if Lavi does decide to talk, he will never have a soft pretzel again. Allen will make sure of it. From the fairly devastated look on Lavi's face as he pulls out a pre-prepared piece of paper from his pocket, that seems to be a decent threat. "And don't you have a coffee machine? I'm pretty sure that's the only working one in this whole place, at the moment."

"That's because we're guarding it with our lives," Lavi says, a worryingly serious look on his face. From what Allen's managed to see in his first week of this "internship" (which is shaping up to be more of a "ooh look new person to torture, hold this beaker or bubbling acid while I go on my scheduled lunch strike" position than an actual _internship_ ), coffee is equivalent to gold in this madhouse. Perhaps it's worth more, actually, because Allen has seen some shady alchemical-looking stuff in the corner lab when he's been doing the lunch-order rounds. At least, he assumes its alchemical. The blocks of solid lead stacked up by the door kind of give it away, as is the person manning the desk and mumbling sleeplessly under his breath, " _why can't I turn this into gold? WHY? WHY HAS GOD ABANDONED ME?"_

Allen tries to avoid the corner labs. He's found that that's where they shove the _really_ crazy people.

"Yes," Allen says. "But why is Jerry putting you on a diet when you've already got copious amounts of caffeine running through your systems?" Allen has seen how much coffee the patients drink. His mental calculations indicate that they should be dead. "That seems…counterproductive. Why do you even have a coffee machine, anyway?"

"Because Lenalee asked," Lavi says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Allen sighs. "Then why doesn't Lenalee ask for processed food?"

Lavi gives him a vaguely shifty look. Allen does not like that look. "Because Komui isn't allowed down here at the moment. It was a…stipulation of that contract he signed. The one after the…" he trails off.

Allen winces.

Kanda has abandoned his aggressive glaring campaign to go over and sit on one of the couches. His ever-present shinai is actually…not in his possession, at the moment, and he looks almost naked without it.

Lavi follows his gaze, looking slightly relieved at not having to remember the…incident.

"Oh, Reever took it away from him when he tried to attack one of the orderlies last night," he says, grin wide. "It was really funny. It took, I dunno, five guys to hold him down?"

"Why is he even allowed a weapon?" Allen says, still bitter about his mild concussion. At least, that's what Reever had diagnosed when Allen had finally deemed it safe to go outside to the labs, where a mop-up crew was taking care of most of the blood. Allen had lied and said that he'd been hit by an airborne table, which Reever had accepted with disturbing ease. He'd been half-drunk at the time, of course, along with everyone else, which might have helped his case. Of course, now that Allen's spent some time here (well, more than his initial warning period), he's come to accept that airborne tables are just a part of life. You duck, or you get hit. Reever was probably laughing at him on the inside while he was patching Allen up. That seems like something Reever would do.

"He kept on stealing knives," Lenalee says. "They thought something made of wood wouldn't do as much damage."

"I can _still hear you_ ," Kanda says, not getting up. He's sitting with his back faced to them, legs crossed, back straight as a sword. Allen imagines going up and dunking water over his head with a feeling of great satisfaction.

Lavi smirks. "They got _really_ weird about it when he killed one of the nurses," he says, and Allen turns his wide-eyes onto him.

"He _what_?" Allen says, before whipping his head to stare at Kanda's tense back.

Kanda huffs out a breath, and then twists so that he's leaning with one arm braced against the side of the couch, his long, long hair sliding across the fabric. Allen is still unfairly jealous of that hair, not only because it's darker than his will ever be, but also because it looks _healthy_. Allen isn't willing to even _touch_ half the stuff stocked in his bathroom because it looks like it's been tampered with, and the texture of his hair has suffered for it.

"I didn't _kill_ him, beansprout," he says, eyes flat and face bored.

Lavi snorts. "Oh, so the knife just _happened_ to be stabbed down into his oesophagus, is that it?"

Kanda's entire being is the picture of serenity and unconcern. "I don't know how it happened," he says. "Completely unrelated."

Lenalee sighs. "They put you in isolation for almost a month, after that," she says, hip cocked disapprovingly. "Honestly, Kanda."

"Completely. Unrelated."

"How are you not in jail?" Allen wonders out loud.

"The previous Chief split a deal," Lenalee says. "Apparently. At least, that's what my brother told me. Kanda was here before Lavi and I."

"Oh, yes, I'm _special_ ," Kanda says, and then shows a great deal of restraint in turning away from them to continue with his calmed breathing. Allen, who has been waiting for Kanda to snap since the beginning of the conversation and try to kill them with his hair, lets out a small sigh and loosens his fists.

Lavi gives him a painfully knowing look. "You" – Kanda twitches, but doesn't actually do anything – "Shouldn't worry about him. He's a real pussycat, when it comes down to it."

Allen shakes his head and looks through the list Lavi has given him, mentally crossing off _gunpowder_ , _steak knives_ and _helium_.

"I wouldn't even know where to get helium," Allen says.

"You'll find a way," Lavi says, with the cheerful voice of someone who doesn't really care about other people's problems. Allen is viciously glad that there's still a long bruise down the side of Lavi's face, next to the ridiculous-looking eyepatch. "I believe in you, beansprout."

Allen's eyes flash, and he lunges before he's even had time to think about it. Lavi goes down in a pile of muffled shouts and flailing limbs, head cracking ominously against the ground. Kanda looks up in mild interest, but a threatening glare from Lenalee causes him to close his eyes and nonchalantly continue to meditate.

"If you don't stop in ten seconds…" Lenalee says, trailing off with the promise of pain.

 _Keep hitting him_ , Neah says, and that's what ultimately causes Allen to pull off. He's found that he enjoys doing the opposite of what Neah tells him to, just out of spite. It's difficult living with a voice in your head 24/7, and he takes what little pleasure he can.

Allen stands up and straightens out his clothing, patting himself down to find the list. Lenalee wordlessly hands it to him, face set with disapproval.

"When can you get everything by?" she says, hauling a pathetic-looking Lavi to his feet. "At the moment, the only thing holding me back from going _actually_ insane is our caffeine stash, and that's not going to last forever."

Allen would _really_ like to address that "actually insane" crack, but he won't, because he's not as suicidal as Cross had seemed to think he is. From what he's seen, _everyone_ in this place is certifiable, and should probable be in straightjackets instead of handling dangerous objects that could possibly be the world's next big superweapon. Allen would be concerned, if he wasn't so busy trying not to die via a robot malfunction that had knocked out half the scientists while trying to shove undercooked scrambled eggs down their throat. Which had happened. Twice.

"I'm due to go into town tomorrow," Allen tells her, pocketing the list and stretching out his arms. "Apparently your brother wants to make sure I get some fresh air so I don't collapse. Johnny's coming with me to make sure I don't make a run for it."

"Oh, yes, that's been a problem before," Lenalee says, nodding.

 _I love this place_ , Neah says, sounding almost dreamy. _Can we burn it down, now? Because you still have that lighter on you, and I haven't seen any plans to ditch it anytime soon._

"Hush," Allen says. He's gotten into the bad habit of speaking out loud whenever he's around these people – though he isn't too worried, considering at _least_ a third of the scientists outside talk to themselves on a regular basis. He really doesn't know what differentiates these three from the myriad of crazy people outside this room, and he's almost afraid to find out.

Lenalee has learned over the past few days to ignore these seemingly random pieces of interspaced dialogue, which is…nice. It's really nice, actually. He's never had someone who's been able to so blatantly ignore his own special brand of – whatever this is. Not insanity, for sure, because he's _not insane_ , thank you Cross.

Kanda doesn't let it go, though, because Kanda is a dick. He lets out a low grunt of laughter, not even bothering to smother it even a little bit. Allen hates him so much, it's not even funny. If Lenalee wasn't there –

But she was, and he's promised to behave.

Allen settles for sticking his tongue out – childish, but he's fifteen, so he thinks he can get away with it.

"I should get back to work," he says, before he does something even more stupid.

Lenalee sighs. "Make sure to get the coffee beans," she says. "We're running out. You won't really like us when we don't have caffeine."

Allen has a pretty good idea _just how much_ he's not going to like them without caffeine. He can already imagine it now, equating it to something similar to a burned-black pit of tortured souls rising from sticky tar.

"I'm going to go now," Allen says, turning towards the official exit. He's actually supposed to be here, for once; Reever had ordered him inside, done some very brief introductions, and then told Allen to fill out a medical chart. Lenalee had taken the clipboard away from him almost as soon as Reever was gone and filled it out. Still, he doesn't think that he's supposed to be staying here for long. "There's still a bit of that radioactive sludge left in the bathrooms, and I think I'm supposed to be cleaning it up."

Lenalee arches her eyebrows at him, giving him the discarded clipboard. Her handwriting is neat and precise, and Allen wonders how much trouble this job is going to get him into by the end of it. "You sure you don't want to dodge out?"

Allen really, _really_ wants to dodge out. He also doesn't want to lose that trip he's getting outside tomorrow. There's no way Johnny can run faster than he can.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Allen says with a smile, and leaves.

...

...

 **A/N** : oh god that was painful. Sorry if it seems kind of like a filler chapter, because that's what this fic is mostly going to be about, btw. In case you haven't already noticed :P

Thank you so much to everyone who liked/favourited, and SPECIAL thanks to **jy24** and **waterlit** for reviewing :) Seriously, reviews mean so much to me.

See you next week!

Mneme


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D Gray-man, which is probably for the best, because I'd try and give these kids all happy endings.

Which is clearly not going to happen.

 **Edited** 27/03/2017 - fixed Komui's name!

...

...

 _Akuma!_

Allen freezes, automatically scanning the area. Neah is mentally trying to tug his eyes in the right direction, but it's hard; Allen isn't properly comfortable with Neah taking over _any_ part of him, especially his neck. He doesn't have a concrete reason for it, other than the fact that his Master had taken him to enough possession-horror movies as a child to give him a streak of paranoia thicker than his spine.

"Where?" he hisses through gritted teeth, left eye aching. He's trying, he really is, but it's difficult to tell when he's surrounded by so many people.

 _Female_ , Neah says, mental-voice sharper than usual. _Middle-aged, dressed like a movie-star, thick sunglasses and a blue sundress –_

Allen straightens, smile automatically coming out. _I'm harmless_ , he thinks, _I'm that nice kid next door you let babysit your children._ "Got her."

"Got who?"

Allen's brain grinds to a halt, and he half-turns to Johnny, who is giving him a frankly exhausted look. No matter that Reever had let them both sleep in by almost thirty minute (thirty _whole minutes_ ) so they looked vaguely presentable for the Outside Wold – Johnny is going to need at least six months on ice before those dark marks under his eyes even started to fade.

Everything is so _loud_ here, too. Allen's kind of disturbed at how sensitive he is, now that he's outside and out from the basement. Even the laboratories and the drunken parties and the sad wailing of trapped souls is almost soothing compared to how many people there are in the town, crowding around and bumping into him when he can't manage to dodge out of the way fast enough. He's used to big cities, thanks to Cross, but he finds himself oddly disorientated with the sun beating down and the noise picking up like a bad telephone signal. He hears snatches of conversation with his open ears, but nothing substantial enough to warrant any actual eavesdropping.

"Allen," Johnny says, folding his arms across his skinny chest and kicking out his hip. "You can't run off chasing girls! I'm supposed to stay with you at all times, to make sure you don't – um, run off. We've lost five employees that way."

This does not surprise Allen in the slightest. He turns his smile vague, keeping a close eye on the demon skulking around the town's centre. They're standing near a giant water fountain that's spurting water up erratically into the air and splashing everyone not smart enough to keep a safe distance. The walls are lines with shops – most of them food – and Allen's stomach rumbles with an ominous kind of warning, a reminder that he hasn't had anything since those seventeen gluten-free pancakes from breakfast (drenched with all the toppings, of course), twelve pieces of toast, and five sets of scrambled eggs. He loves Jerry, he really does; there is no one alive or dead who can make him say otherwise.

The demon is obviously standing back and setting up a perfect target. Its teeth are pulled back into an amicable smile, and the dress is short and fluffy enough that it skirts just the right side of skanky – Allen knows _all_ the sides of skanky, thanks to his copious adolescent years spent frequenting the back-rooms of brothels courtesy of his Master. _You have to leave them wanting more_ , he remembers, eyeing the dress with a professional sort of appreciation. The demon has good eyes.

Good, _evil_ eyes.

"I'm not running off to chase girls," Allen assures the poor scientist, who looks stressed enough to pop all the blood vessels in his eyes. Allen's actually kind of worried about Johnny's eyes, considering the way his friend seems to have trouble seeing around even _with_ his glasses pressed up so fast over the bridge of his nose he's surprised Johnny isn't feinting from lack of oxygen. "I'm just a little hungry, that's all."

Johnny squints up at him. "…we just ate."

Allen laughs, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. "No we didn't," he says.

"No, we literally just ate," Johnny says, frowning dazedly down at the shopping bags he has laden upon his arms. Behind Johnny is a small robot, invented by Komui for the express purpose of holding their groceries. Neither of them are game enough to actually use it, so it just spins behind them, occasionally making beeping noises and giving people electric shocks while playing a recording of Komui's laughter. The first time it had happened, Allen almost had a heart-attack, and his reaction hasn't exactly decreased in extremeness every incident since.

"We haven't had anything since breakfast," Allen says, patiently. This isn't the first time he's had a conversation like this. Johnny has problems remembering which day it is most of the time – whether or not he's eaten is usually a matter of public debate. Tapp's supposed to be in charge of that, but when _he's_ focused enough on a project that _he_ forgets to eat – well, Allen's become used to grabbing whatever they're working on from right under their noses and replacing it with whatever's on the lunch menu.

Jerry doesn't make soup anymore since That Incident – the one with the canary, not the one with the mould (Allen's eyes still haven't quite recovered from the sight of Komui in cat-print boxers), but he's been branching out into other foods. Still, even Jerry can only do so much with limited groceries, and when Allen snuck into the kitchen for his midnight snack, there had hardly been anything in the fridge. Even less after Allen had helped himself (Jerry had actually started leaving out whatever leftovers he could scrounge up from dinner; Allen Really, Honestly, Truly Loved Jerry from the Bottom of his Heart).

Johnny glares at him, eyes surprisingly focused. "No," he says. "You stole three of my energy bars and most of my brownie."

"That's not food," Allen says, glaring right back. "That's barely enough sustenance to drag me to lunch. It's lunchtime, and I'm hungry."

The demon is moving off to the side, easing itself into the flow of human traffic. Its eyes are locked onto something that Allen can't quite make out, but he doesn't need to, because he's seen that look on a demon before.

"I can't believe you," Johnny says, making an awkward effort to throw his hands into the air. It fails pretty badly, considering just how many shopping bags he's got cutting off his circulation. "Do you have any idea how expensive this place it? There's a reason we're on a budget – ooh, Reever is going to kill me for overpaying on the whisky, but the Chief –"

"I just saw someone I know," Allen says, pitching his voice high and excited. "Hey, Maria! What are you – here, take these for me, would you? I haven't seen Maria since Barcelona, and –"

With zero sympathy, Allen ruthlessly pushes all of his own purchases (money courtesy of whoever had an open purse, which was everyone in the labs) onto Johnny and then dashes off, careful not to knock anyone over. He ignores Johnny's desperate shouts with ease, and it isn't until he's on the other side of the fountain (with Johnny's eyesight, he's effectively made himself invisible) that Allen notices that he's being pursued.

 _Effectively_ pursued, which is something he never expected from Johnny. Turning around, Allen opens his mouth to try and explain that _honestly, Maria is amazing,_ and _I missed her so much, can you just give me five minutes_ – when he receives an electric shock to the stomach that sends him stumbling back.

 _Ooph_! He thinks, bumping into a wall.

 _Ooph_! Neah thinks, sounding dazed. _What the hell? You're letting it get away_!

Komui's 'helper-robot' is standing right in front of him, red lights flashing. It's beeping in a fast, dangerous tone that has Allen backing up further into the wall. There's a _click_ , and the recording of Komui's laughter plays. Allen starts to sweat.

" _Hello, Allen_ ," the robot says, when the now-familiar spiel of laughter ends. It's still Komui's voice, which doesn't make Allen feel any better _at all_. " _I see you've just made an attempt to duck out of our contract_ –"

Allen frowns. "Wait, what contract? I didn't sign anything!"

" _But no need to fear! I have made plans for this…eventuality, and_ –"

 _Allen, it is GETTING AWAY,_ Neah hisses.

Allen sighs, giving the robot a respectful bow. "I'm really sorry for doing this!" he says, before bashing his foot into the middle of the robot, knocking it off its legs and onto the ground. It rolls to the side, cylindrical body doing it no favours as it attempts to get back on its wheels.

"EXTERMINATE!" the robot declares loudly. Passers-by give it wary looks. "EXTERMINATE!"

"I'm sorry!" Allen repeats, ducking off. He finds it strange that he feels guiltier about knocking around a robot than he does about ditching Johnny, but then again, that robot has never tried to kill him with a rusty screwdriver when Allen was _just trying_ to make sure he wasn't drooling on any important research notes. Not that Allen is bitter about that, or anything.

The demon hasn't gotten far. It's casually strolling forward down the street, smile set, skirt fluffing around her knees. Allen is very carefully not impressed.

"Maria!" he calls, jogging to catch up with it. "Hey, Maria!"

The demon doesn't turn its head until Allen is almost on top of it, and by then it's too late to do anything without making a scene. And this demon really does not want to make a scene, not when it's obvious to how much effort it's gone to conceal itself.

"I'm sorry," the demon says, turning away from Allen's friendly arm around its shoulder. "I'm afraid you've got the wrong –"

 _Neah_?

 _Yeah, this is the one_. Allen can almost see Neah's wide smile, toothless and thin. _Go for it, kid_.

Allen palms the knife from his pocket and sticks it into the demon's side, pressing down hard enough that it pricks at bloodless skin. "Maria," he says, meeting the demon's eyes squarely. "It's been _so long_."

The demon stills, assessing.

"Yes," it says, slowly. "It has been…a while."

"Great!" Allen says, taking the demon's arm and dragging it towards one of the side-streets, careful to keep a sharp eye out for either Johnny or the robot.

When they're both successfully concealed from the main square (and all those pesky people who would _most definitely_ interfere with anything that looked any sort of dodgy – Allen really hates upstanding citizens, he really does) the demon sags against the wall and tries to look as helpless as possible.

"Who are you?" it says, voice trembling and eyes filling with tears. "What do you want with me? My – my name isn't Maria, and I think –"

The first time Allen killed a demon, he was ten, and nothing in the world made sense. Mana was gone, Cross Marian was his guardian, and he had a voice in his head screaming incessantly about _PAIN DEATH REVENGE-REVENGE-REVENGE LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME –_

He'd been standing behind one of the buildings, trying to catch his breath and work on gaining more flexibility for his left hand, and the screaming had stopped.

It had been almost surreal, being the only one in his head for the first time in as long as he could remember. He jerked his head up, trying to figure out what was going on, almost frightened by the suddenness of the silence.

"Neah?" he said, tentative and small.

 _An Akuma_.

"What?"

A frustrated sigh. _A demon. Right over there. A male. Tall. Pale skin, dark suit, sunburned nose. Tourist_.

"A…what?"

 _Kill it_.

Allen hadn't killed it. Allen had run away to where his Master had holed himself up and refused to leave his bed for the rest of the week, no matter _what_ Cross had threatened him with. When he finally had managed to gain the courage to step outside – mostly due to Neah being _completely unbearable_ about the whole thing – he avoided the square where they had seen the demon as much as humanly possible.

"…I'm sorry for whatever I've done to offend you," the demon in front of him says, face weepy. She reaches out to tug at Allen's sleeve, blinking up at him with all the inborn charisma of someone who possesses great cheekbones. "Please, let me go – I've just lost my daughter –"

It had taken less than three days for Allen to find the demon with its jaws clamped around a little boy's throat.

Allen promised, then, never to make the mistake of running away again.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking into the demon's eyes and wishing he could see the real thing under the victim's skin. He hates this part, but he has no choice, because the skin isn't real. Nothing about this demon is real; it's all a carefully constructed façade, meant to entangle unwary passers-by. There is no woman in front of him, pleading for her life – it's a trick, a trap, a lie. Allen wishes so badly that he could see the truth.

The demon stares up at him, face contorted with disbelief as he brings down the knife. Then it reacts, dodging out of the way and going for his throat, claws out.

"Oh, God, please being salvation to this poor demon's soul," Allen says, and then kills it.

...

...

 **A/N** : hey! Thanks for everyone who liked and favourited! Special thanks to **jy24** and **waterlit** for reviewing :) you're both angels.

Hope people enjoyed this chapter, I'd really like to hear feedback! I'm so tired.

See you next week.

Mneme


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer** : I don't own -man

Umm, general warning, this kind of gets a bit darker than I was hoping to go for this series. Comedy is something I work for, but at the moment things aren't very funny, so you get this instead, haha. If you're looking for something happy, I don't think my writing is a good place for you to be at the moment :( sorry, guys.

Also unedited, because screw editing I need money.

…

Allen is regretting things.

Not killing the demon, of course. Neah won't let him regret that – he keeps saying things like, _Remember what happens when they get away?_ and _Don't be stupid, Allen, think of all the people who could have died_. So no, Allen does not regret killing the evil abomination straight from the pits of hell.

He does regret getting caught, though.

Allen'd been having such a good _run_ , too. Long-cons weren't exactly his forte – he was more used to fleecing an opponent for everything they were carrying, and then getting the hell out of dodge carrying a hungover Cross strapped to his back – but there had been something _thrilling_ about just lying, getting away with it, and then not running as fast as his legs could carry him. He'd been so careful, too, not setting up any sort of blackmail ring and staying far away from the illegal coffee underground market that no matter _how_ many times Reever shut down, just kept on popping back up. Even with a reasonably steady supply of cheap coffee beans filtering through to the labs (it had been a _very explicit_ stipulation in the peace treaty signed by both parties) the trade hasn't really slipped all too much. Allen can almost _smell_ how much money he could make just by getting in on it.

But he's careful. He's playing a game he doesn't know to the rules to, so he's laying low and keeping quiet. He hadn't even planned on returning after that little trip – Johnny wasn't exactly an eagle-eyed observer, and Allen could have just slipped quietly away and be half-way across the country before anyone was the wiser.

He hadn't counted on the robot.

"So, Allen," Koumi says, face drawn into a serious mask that does nothing for Allen's squirming stomach. "If that's really your name."

Then he pauses. Allen waits a moment, thinking that it's a dramatic emphasis, and then comes to the quick realisation that it's actually an opportunity to insert commentary.

"That's my name, Chief," he says, lowering his eyes and trying to make his body as small as possible. It isn't hard; Allen's had practice for this exact scenario since he was twelve. Well, maybe not this _exact_ scenario, where the Chief of a psychiatric mental asylum for the criminally insane was questioning him about a murder – more along the lines of "no sir I'm fine sir I'm just a little orphan boy living cold and alone sir, please let me leave and never mind all that blood everywhere."

Koumi gives a small huff. There are dark circles under his eyes, but that isn't anything unusual. They're all standing – well, in Koumi's case, _sitting_ – in the main office, paperwork almost a second skin around the entire room. The walls are plastered with bills; Allen suspects Reever as being the instigator, considering that there's also a massive sign that says: THREE MONTHS OVERDUE in bright red letters directly opposite Koumi's desk. Allen doesn't know why he bothers, really – Koumi has made it abundantly clear that money is a concept that exists on a lower plane of being.

"You were found," Koumi says, stare flat. "Over the body of Olivia Harringford, whom you referred to – according to Johnny, at least – as Maria."

Allen really, _really_ wishes he had been able to get away.

What was the proper response, here? Was he supposed to say no, I'm sorry, I had the wrong person? He was either admitting to be a killer, or admitting to being a crazy killer who was plagued with hallucinations. He didn't have many options here, and none of them were going to get him free. Allen is a fast talker, but much as he is loath to admit it, he's nowhere near Cross's level of slimy.

Neah sighs. _This is annoying. You're the good guy in this, Walker. Tell them what you saw and get over it._

 _Play it up_ , Allen thinks. He's got two major paths to choose from, here; act crazy or act sane. He thinks about how Lenalee and Lavi are treated, thinks about the way Kanda admitted to killing someone and still has access to weapons. Thinks, _Well, if they've already caught me…_

"I lied," he says, trying not to sound as annoyed as he feels. "I didn't know its name, only that it was a demon. If I hadn't killed it, it would have killed someone else. Someone human."

"You what," Reever says, sounding blank.

"Demons," Allen says, and then really goes into it. If he's acting crazy, then he's going to be _crazy_. Look at me, I'm so interesting, keep me here to _study my brain_ until I can figure out a way out of here. He can do it, he's sure, given enough time. Allen is resourceful like that. "Weapons formed from the grief of a loved one's death, made by the Millennium Earl with dark matter. They –"

"No, stop," Koumi says. He sounds tired, but Allen's been here long enough to understand that everyone here is tired. "I get the picture. Cross Marian didn't send you here for an internship, did he?"

Allen sighs. "Well…"

"What did you do to our paperwork?" Reever says, squinting at him suspiciously.

Allen breaks character to give him an incredulous stare, and then gestures emphatically around the room with his bound hands. _Have you SEEN this place_? he tries to convey.

Reever ignores him. "Because it was _very odd_ that the Chief didn't manage to find that letter you mentioned. Give him a night and the things he need will usually…turn up."

"I have this place properly organised!" Koumi protests.

Everyone stares at him.

"That letter was _gone_ ," he adds, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Allen. "What did you do to it? Or did Cross just drop you off without actually sending something to us first? Because that sounds like him."

"You know my Master?" Allen says, blinking. He'd assumed a certain level of knowledge considering how well his name had been received upon entry, but – well, he's also assumed that anyone who actually _knew_ Cross wouldn't want his apprentice anywhere near anything valuable. Just in case.

"Yes, yes," Koumi says, eyes distracted. "That makes sense, that makes – Reever, go put him downstairs with the others."

Allen straightens his spine. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Koumi gives him a vague smile. "Why, _Allen_ ," he says, leaning forward on the desk. "You're _crazy_ , if you hadn't noticed. That's our speciality! And considering that you've just committed what I assume to be several criminal offenses" – he holds up his hand to foretell Allen's spluttering protest – "Don't even try to lie, we searched the bags you gave to Johnny and found _several_ highly illegal substances in them. Where was I going with this?"

Reever lets out a long, frustrated sigh.

"Oh, yes! Well, considering that we _specialise_ in insane criminals, I think you're going to fit in really well here."

Allen shifts on his feet. Something feel strange about this whole setup, and not just because he's going to be thrown in the basement of what probably amounted to a conglomerate of mad scientists hellbent on working themselves into an early grave. They'd taking this too easily; even Cross had been given a pause the first time he'd come across Allen after a kill.

It had been his third. No, his fourth – it was difficult to remember, sometimes, because he tried very hard to forget his early forays into the dangerous wide-open world. '

It had been his third, and he'd been sick. Not sick enough that Cross was bitching about the lack of income, but also sick about that every time Neah started talking he wanted to die, which was basically always. He'd wandered out from the small hovel Cross had settled them into the week before, the rain misting around his skin and screwing up his already squinty vision completely. His depth-perception had been so bad that he'd banged into a nearby building more than once, crashing and apologising to signs who looked so very much like people.

The demon had looked – maybe twelve, maybe ten, depending on the light. Allen didn't know. Allen didn't want to know. It had been small, that's what he remembers, small enough that it had only come up to his waist.

 _Mister_ , it said, tugging at the side of his shirt and blinking large eyes up at him. _Mister, hey, do you have any money_?

Allen had blinked down at her, dumb. His nose was running, and his head was aching something fierce.

 _Allen_ , Neah hissed.

"No," Allen said, but he wasn't really sure who he was talking to. "No, I can't – I won't –"

"Mister?" the demon – it was a demon, _it had to be a demon_ – said, blinking. "Mister, hey, are you –"

 _Aaalleeen_ , Neah said.

"No," Allen said, again, backing away. "I don't want to, I don't want – this isn't –"

The demon started backing away, looking wary. "Are you okay?" it said, but it wasn't coming any closer. "Do you need me to get someone for you?"

Allen shook his head.

 _Remember what happens_ , Neah said, every word an aching bruise against the inside of Allen's temples. _Remember what happens when you're complacent, when you look away from the evil that lurks within these sacks of skin. That's all these creatures are, Allen – sacks of skin with charred bones and the dead soul. This one is screaming at you, begging to be released_.

Allen shook his head, again. His body felt weightless and achy. "I don't want to," he said. It was – this was just a kid. He remembered what it was like, watching the passers-by with hungry desperate eyes. He remembered, he remembered –

 _You're being cruel_ , Neah said. _Cruel, by just leaving it like that. Don't you want to_ help _people, Allen? Don't you want to_ save _people, Allen?_

 _I do_ , Allen thought. _I don't._

 _Why didn't anyone want to save me?_

The demon in front of him looked shiftily around, sizing up its options. There weren't many people around – like, _at all_ – since Allen had somehow wandered into one of the lesser alleys. He couldn't remember the way back to the main road, and there weren't any helpful human-sized (or otherwise) signs to help him figure out where he was. A fairly decently sized garbage bin was shoved to one side of the wall, but that was the only fixture that Allen could see in the mist.

The demon obviously decides to give it another go. "Are you sure you don't need any help?" it said, shifting uneasily from side to side. "I know my way around, I can find anyone! I just need some money. My big sister died earlier this year, and I've been living on –"

Neah started laughing. _How sad_ , he said. _You remember what I told you, didn't I? How painful it is, to conceive a demon? My, my, this little thing must have been so_ desperate _without his sister, must have wanted her back_ so badly _that he was willing to sell his soul…_

"I'm fine," Allen said, clearing his throat and leaning his back against the wall. His body was on fire, but he managed to look up and summon a decent smile for the demon. "I'm sorry to scare you. Did you want some money?"

The demon's eyes _lit up_.

It moved forward, closer, closer, until it was within arm's reach. A hand was held out, eagerly.

 _I'm not going to make the first move_ , Allen thought. _I won't, I can't. I'm not going to kill you unless you try to kill me, I don't want to kill you, please let Neah be wrong –_

 _I'm disappointed in you, Allen_ , Neah said. _I'm never wrong_.

Cross found him later that afternoon, when the mist had burned away and the air was stale with the scent of garbage. Allen looked up from where he was sitting against the wall, so tired.

"Idiot apprentice," Cross said, kneeling in front of him. He grabbed Allen's hands and turned them over to study the palms, fingers scraping away the blackened blood that still clung stubbornly to Allen's skin. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Allen shook his head and buried his face back into his knees, shoulders shaking. Everything hurt. His head hurt. The two deep scratches along his stomach hurt. And he was covered in so much blood.

Reever is making impatient faces at them, and Allen realises that they actually want him to say something. What on earth could they want? He's already incriminated himself enough, hasn't he? Johnny had found him standing over Oli – the _demon's_ body, knife in hand. It had been a clean kill, because he'd gotten better with practice.

"I'm not insane," Allen says, because why not.

"No, of course not," Koumi says. "Reever, I've heard enough. Take him downstairs, would you?"

Reever sighs his long-suffering _why-me_? sigh, the one that has led to several coup attempts and – memorably – an entire eight course dinner with expensive wine. When Koumi does apologies, he apparently pulls out all the stops. Allen is _very_ interest to know what the Chief did to warrant such an extravagant plea for forgiveness, but everyone involved in the incident had been sworn to secrecy and bribed with extra coffee rations for a month.

Now, Allen doubts that he'll ever get the chance to figure it out, not if he's going to be locked downstairs away from everyone. He's seen the way the patients are treated; they're interesting laboratory experiments, nothing more. They're actually more of a _side interest_ than any of the other projects the scientists are currently working on; clearly, whoever had coined the whole 'mental asylum' idea had clearly done it with the express purpose of ducking out from under those pesky government stipulations that were all the rage, these days. Like _human experimentation_ , and _mind control_ , and all other manner of most-than-a-little-bit illegal things that Allen is kind of horrified he knows about. After all, no one _really_ cared what happened to crazy people.

 _You did a good thing_ , Neah says. _You saved people. After all, that's what you want to do with this life you've bene given, isn't it?_

"I'm not crazy," Allen insists again, but he allows himself to be lead away. His last glance at Koumi reveals the Chief to be sharp-eyed and tight-lipped, his face set into grim funeral lines that boded ill for the future.

…

 **A/N** : Thank you everyone who liked and favourited! Special thanks to **Blue16Talons** , **jy24** , **waterlit** and **Sadistic Yaoi Queen** for reviewing! You really helped to make my week.

Phew, sorry if this seems rushed, but I just started a job so my writing time has been kind of decimated. I'm sooo tired, ohmygosh. I'll try to do better next chapter!

See you next week :)

Mneme


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man

This is it, guys; last time I'm writing this at the last-minute. God, you'd think I'd learn.

 **Edited** 27/03/2017 - fixed Komui's name!

…

…

"I can't believe you got caught."

Lavi looks suitably disgusted with him, which Allen thinks is rich, considering he was the one who requested gasoline and matches.

"Dumbass," Kanda says.

Allen's eye ticks, and he lunges at the older teen without really thinking things through properly. They both go down to the floor in a tumble, limbs flailing around as they try their very best to viciously murder each other.

"Enough," Lenalee says, clearing her throat pointedly.

Allen bites down on Kanda's arm, as hard as he can. Kanda retaliates by cracking his skull into Allen's ribs.

" _Enough_ ," Lenalee repeats, narrowing her eyes.

"I think we should leave them to play for a bit," Lavi says, leaning against the wall and watching the show with avid interest. "This is better entertainment than anything we're allowed in here, anyway."

"That's not the point," Lenalee says, getting up from where she'd been seated on the couch. They were all inside the break-room, the walls somehow more stifling than any other time Allen's been there. Everything about the place seems closed-off, sealed inside and out. She grabs the discarded clipboard on the table and smashes it down _hard_ on Kanda's head. He goes down with a wide-eyed expression of surprise, but Allen doesn't even have any time to appreciate it before _he_ is subjected to similar abuse.

They curl away from each other, clutching their heads and groaning in agony.

"Lenalee," Allen says, a pitiful whimper in his voice. "Why…?"

Lenalee gives him a look of total distain. "Because you didn't get me marshmallows," she says, looking down her nose.

"Seriously, I'm so disappointed in you," Lavi says, collapsing his legs underneath him to sit cross-legged next to the two glowering teens. "I had so many plans, Allen – plans that involved you having free reign around the laboratories! Anytime they catch me out of my room, they put me in isolation and take away my caffeine rights. I mean, that's not my _only_ source of coffee, but I still think it's a cruel and unusual punishment that is probably illegal."

"This whole place is illegal," Allen mutters.

"Of course it is," Lavi says. "Well, sort of. We've got the backing of the Vatican, so I suppose they can do whatever they like to us, so long as it's subtle."

Allen throws him a dry look. "Killing a demon in the middle of the day isn't exactly _subtle_ ," he says.

 _Oh, sure, just ADMIT it all to them, why don't you_ , Neah grumbles. _Don't be stupid here, Allen._

"I'm not being stupid," he says out loud, and then realises that all three teens are staring at him in something akin to shock. Lenalee's face has gone very pale, the dark circles under her eyes accentuated by the paper-like quality of her cheeks.

"Demons?" she says, voice slightly strangled.

Allen does some very quick mental calculations. "…yes."

Kanda gets off the ground, so that he and Lenalee are staring down at him, while Lavi straightens his spine and gets a scary look in his single visible eye. Allen is not intimidated, because he's fairly certain that he can bribe his way out of whatever mess he's just landed himself in with coffee. He's stashed a few packets of high-quality beans in his jacket, and no one's really thought to take it away from him, yet. He wonders how long it will be because anyone realises he has knives.

"Like…" Lenalee trails off, glancing to Lavi in an obvious plea for help.

"They eat people from the inside out," Lavi says, leaning forward. His face is as intense and serious as Allen has ever seen it, which makes him all kinds of nervous. "So that there's nothing left but bones and skin. Then they kill people."

 _That is…oddly specific_ , Neah says, something strange and pensive about his mental-voice.

"The Millennium Earl," Kanda says, curling his lips up in a now-familiar snarl.

Neah starts screaming.

Allen lurches forward, clutching at his forehead, shocked at the suddenness of it all. The world has gone white, static buzzing around his ears and knocking against his eyes. He can't think, he can't breathe, he can't –

In the distance, he can hear the conversation going on without him, the voices panicked and muffled;

"Shit! We can't just leave him like this, what if he gets –"

"Don't be stupid, rabbit. He's fine – look, he's blinking at us."

"His _eyes are twitching_ , oh my god, he's dying. Lenalee, go find one of the scientists! They'll know what's happening!"

"What, and you don't? He's having a seizure. Obviously."

"Don't you _obviously_ me, Yuu! I don't have the experience for this!"

"What, and I'm supposed to? Just let the brat turn himself into a vegetable, I don't care. He'd probably be less annoying than he is at the moment."

" _Lenalee!_ "

…

…

Allen wakes up in an unfamiliar room.

Neah hasn't stopped screaming, but it's strangely muffled, like a distant thought churning in the back of his mind. His head feels fuzzy, his brain padded between his skull with cotton wool. Everything's itchy and soft, scraping against his skin with just the wrong amount of pressure.

"Ah, good. You're awake."

"Lenalee?" he croaks out, feeling like death warmed over.

"And lucid, too! This keeps getting better," Lenalee says with a bright smile, kicking her chair away from his bed and standing up to stretch. "The last time you woke up, you almost killed, like, three guards. It's a good thing Kanda was here, otherwise you'd probably have been put into solitary."

"My head hurts," Allen groans, clearing his throat to clear out the fuzzy gunk. As expected, it doesn't do much good, but he'd really been hoping for a miracle or something. He's doing God's work, isn't he?

"Yeah, that should fade," Lenalee says. "They've got you on the good meds at the moment, so you won't be able to really do much for the next few days. At least, until they figure out the right dosage. That should help with the voice, though."

Allen tries to consider his options, tries to pretend he's sitting at a game of high-stakes poker and he's betting everything he has (not that he'd ever be so stupid. _Always leave something in reserve_ , he thinks, having mini-flashbacks containing the bad memories of Cross stealing the clothes off his back so he _Looked more convincing this way. Always to pathetic, idiot apprentice !_ Allen really, really, honest and truly hated Cross with every fibre of his being). It's hard, though, because thinking isn't coming as naturally as usual.

"What was that about?" he manages to slur out, rather proud at himself for keeping up the accent.

"The fit, or the medication?" Lenalee says, smile wry. Allen just looks at her, because more than one sentence in a row is a bit of a stretch.

There's a knock on the door, and Lenalee glances up in time to see Komui enter, glasses gleaming. He's holding something that looks suspiciously like a drill, and the hard-helmet he's got on his head isn't soothing any of Allen's nerves.

"Ah, Lenalee!" he says, bounding over and smothering her in a hug. Lenalee squirms uncomfortably, but doesn't actively make a move to push him away. "My favourite sister! I see you've met the newest member of the family."

"We've known each other for quite some time, brother," Lenalee says evenly.

Komui beams at her, fingers tapping restlessly on his drill. Allen wonders how he can look so cheerful around his sister, considering he's the one who put her in here. And isn't that a conflict of interest? Allen is so sure that this place is illegal in so many ways, but he's kind of lost his chance to investigate anything. That _burns_ , mostly because he was clear to make a run for it just yesterday (Cross has to be out of the country by now; the man is allergic to staying in the same place too long, and it's been almost a month), but also because he's kind of interested to see what the alchemists in sector five actually manage to create. The blueprints looked _fascinating_.

"Have you?" Komui says, clearing his throat and straightening his shoulders. "Well, I suppose that's to be expected, what with him being our intern and all. Ah, but you're going to be seeing each other a lot more, now! Isn't that great?"

Allen stares at him, wondering if that's supposed to be a trick question.

Komui's face abruptly darkens. "But if you even _think_ of doing anything…untoward to my little sister. Well. Let's just say that they'll never find the body."

Allen's stomach gives an unpleasant little jolt as he considers just how many bodies that these people have had to…dispose of. _They got really weird about it when he killed one of the nurses_ , he remembers Lavi saying, like it was normal. _You almost killed, like, three guards_.

"I won't," he's quick to assure, mostly because he doesn't want to deal with the Chief of the asylum actively trying to murder him. There's a limit to how much a person can survive, and Allen thinks he's probably used his quota up years ago. Then he sees Lenalee glaring at him, and thinks, _Well, I never expected to live forever_. "I mean, nothing untoward. She's a very nice person. A good friend." Then he stares at the wall and wishes for a quick, clean end.

Of course, knowing his luck, he's going to go out in a suitably horrifying and disturbing manner. Cross always said stuff like that; _Kid, you're going to go out in a suitably horrifying and disturbing manner_. _It's just the way of life. You're morbid as hell, so your death is going to be morbid as hell. Live it. Embrace it. Go get me some more money, we're out of cash and I'm taking Anita out to a nice dinner tonight –_

Komui starts to steam, but Lenalee intervenes because she's a nice person/good friend who doesn't actually want him to die _just yet_. "Brother, why did you come here?"

Komui switches his smile onto her, but she remains unmoved. "I came to check on my newest patient, of course!" he says. "I'm supposed to take a keen interest in everyone's health, so that's what I'm doing!"

"There are literally hundreds of health-code violations in the labs," Allen says, because he apparently doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He's blaming it on the drugs. "Hundreds. I'm surprised no one's died yet."

Then again, people have probably died. The first-time Allen heard a horror-story about infection/fungus/blinking lights (there was apparently a reason they kept a canary down there, apparently. They named is Pidgeon; he was told to check on it three times a day – twice more if there had been a gas leak – and press a big red button if it died) he'd actually shrugged it off. _Nothing can be that bad_ , he thought, and then proceeded to find that things _That Bad_ could actually happen when no one really cared about ethics and sleep. A combination of insomnia and loose morals seemed to be one of the most disastrous things that Allen has borne witness to – and to be frankly honest, growing up under Cross's tutelage had left little room for any sort of shock at a lack of common decency. Allen is almost impressed.

"We compensate their families," Komui says with a distracted wave of his hand, like that's the real solution to all of this. Allen's seen things down there. Horrible things. Things he can never un-see.

Neah's getting louder, the distant wailing pitching high enough to burst his metaphorical eardrums. "Are you here to give me more drugs?" Allen says, not entirely opposed to the idea. The last time Neah had freaked out on him, there hadn't been anything Allen could do but wait and pray for an end. It's kind of nice, knowing that there's something out there that can reliably numb it all.

"Oh, no," Komui says, making a face. "That's the good stuff. We can't give you too much of that, or you'll be rendered almost completely unresponsive. It's also highly addictive, so we only use it in – erm, special circumstances."

…or not. Allen really hates that this is his life, sometimes. Most of the time.

"Wait," he says, blinking heavily. "This happens…often?"

Komui goes shifty. "No," he says. "Not…exactly. Let's just say we're uniquely equipped to deal with these _special cases_ , and leave it at that."

Lenalee gives her brother a sharp, biting look. Allen almost gets second-hand slashes from it. "Brother," she says, and she doesn't sound happy.

Komui doesn't even flinch, his vague smile fixed firmly in place. There's something going on with his eyes that Allen would have been able to read if he wasn't drugged out of his mind, but hey. Even if he wasn't drugged, he'd probably be in a padded cell screaming his head off, so he supposes that everything's a give and take.

"Lenalee," he says cheerfully, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. She looks like she's deciding whether or not to shrug it off, but it's already too late, and he's guiding her towards the door and out of the room. "I'll let you come back and visit later! I promise! Now if you could just – yes, thank you Reever, please take Lenalee back to her room, would you?"

" _Brother_!" Lenalee says, as he pushes her out of the room and closes the door.

Allan shoves himself up onto his elbows, still feeling dizzy. The room he's currently residing in is only a little ways off from the infirmary, an area which spans two floors and is connected by a flight of stairs that no one is really sure exists. Allen's heard theories about how the nurses traverse floors with a seeming casual ignorance of the rules of physics – then again, most of this place _works_ on a casual ignorance of the rules of physics, so he doesn't really know what he can trust anymore.

"Ah, Allen," Komui says, and he's still smiling. Allen feels something cold skitter down the length of his spine. "Well, now. How are you feeling?"

…

…

 **A/N** : HELLO! Thanks so much to everyone who liked and followed and stuff, and SPECIAL thanks to **jy24** , **waterlit** and **Jazebeth** for reviewing! You really make my week xD

Also it is still Saturday. I am not late. No, nope. Sorry if this feels kind of like a filler :P. God, I'm starting uni again next week and I'm already three weeks behind. Howw. Whyy.

See you next week!

Mneme


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man. Oh, the horror. Bwahaha I think I'm funny.

Also, a day early! Cause I thought skipping kendo was a good idea and tomorrow I have work.

 **Edited** 27/03/2017 - fixed Komui's name!

…

…

"So, long story short," Komui says, grinning from ear to ear. Allen instinctively distrusts that smile, because he's seen it _just before_ Komui announced the Great New Business Model that's going to Really Get Us Out of Debt, Guys, I Promise, and then proceeded to fire most of the kitchen staff and poison almost all the drinkable water in the building. "We specialise in studying abnormal cases where patients believe demons are real, and attack them."

Allen stares at him, eyes narrowed. He wonders vaguely how many people that smile has fooled.

"So you don't take anyone else?" Allen says. "I thought this was a criminal research facility."

Komui's face doesn't falter. "We make sure to give our patients the best care possible," he says. "While maintaining a safe, happy work environment for our employees."

This is a lie. Allen has lived in this "safe, happy work environment" as an employee for almost a month, and how Komui can ever say that with a straight face is beyond his understanding. There is nothing safe _or_ happy about the work environment fostered in the basement, unless he counts that one time that someone had accidentally released laughing gas into the ventilation system, which he doesn't.

"Why does it sound like you're giving me a pitch?" he says, trying – and failing – to keep the suspicion out of his voice. Allen's head has cleared up some, but there's still a throbbing ache centring just underneath the skin of his temples, and he can't think as clearly as he'd like for this conversation. Neah's gone silent, which is both a relief and a worry, because Allen can count the number of times that Neah's gone silent after a traumatic experience, that amounts to Mana's death and nothing else. "I can't actually leave, you know that, right? You don't have to sell this place to me."

"I want you to feel safe here, Allen," Komui says, and he sounds so earnest, too. "I know that it's a bit of a shock, being demoted from intern to patient" – Allen thinks it might actually be a promotion, considering that he's going to be getting unlimited coffee and minimal exposure to radioactive substances, but he doesn't actually say that – "But this is your home! I'm sure Cross dropped you off here because he wanted what was best for you."

Allen side-eyes him and considers a number of things to say, none of which are very flattering towards Cross, before ultimately deciding that it's just not worth the hassle. "Yes," he says instead, gritting his teeth against the instinctive desire to badmouth his Master. "That's exactly what prompted him to leave me here. He was…worried about me. Yes."

"Now, are you going to attack anyone else, or can I escort you back to your new room?"

Allen's drugged, not stupid. "Of course I won't attack anyone else. I'm really sorry that happened – I don't know what I was thinking."

"It's okay," Komui says immediately. "You weren't in your right mind. The drug's we've got you on now can cause some…unintended side-effects for some people, so irrational anger and – um, biting people isn't incredibly abnormal."

Allen swills his tongue experimentally around his mouth, running it over his teeth with a frown. He doesn't taste any blood, but then again, his tongue feels fuzzy enough to have an ecosystem of fleas living between the strands of fur. "Did I really bite someone?" he says. "I should apologise."

"Don't worry, it was only Johnny," Komui says. Allen immediately worries, because Johnny isn't really in a position to survive a strong breeze, let alone broken skin. "Oh, and Kanda, but he's fine."

Allen is more than a little horrified about this, but tries not to let any of it show on his face.

"He's fine," Komui says. "Well, mostly. It's not going to scar, at least."

"Uh huh," Allen says. "…are you going to let me go back to my room, or…?"

"Oh, no," Komui says. "I'm afraid we're going to make to make sure you won't – um, bite anyone again. The detox will only take a few hours; it's incredibly fast-acting."

"Detox," Allen says faintly. He mentally catalogues what he knows about the infirmary, and then sadly concludes that he won't be escaping anytime soon – at least, not without a lot of outside help. "Will that be – painful?"

"Oh, no!" Komui says. Even if Allen wasn't a naturally suspicious person, the look on Komui's face would make him more than a little bit wary. "Not at all painful. I promise."

…

…

Allen is in _so much pain_.

"Everything hurts," he moans pitifully to the unsmiling nurses who are watching over him with unsettling intensity. "Please kill me. I'm dying anyway, it'd be a mercy-killing, I promise."

"Get back into bed, Walker."

…

…

"Oh, look," Kanda says. It's a fine line between deadpan and condescending, but he makes it work. "It returns."

"Don't make me hurt you," Allen says. He's not wobbling on his legs, and he definitely _doesn't_ collapse onto the couch the moment he's close enough. That does not happen, no. "I will. I will hurt you."

"I'm feeling incredibly threatened," Kanda says, baring his teeth. "Look, it can even speak. I was almost _certain_ you were going to regress into a vegetable. How…disappointing."

Allen's eyes blaze. He considers getting up, but – well, it'll be _really_ embarrassing if something were to…happen. Like his knees giving out. His body doesn't really feel too great, actually. Like someone's stretched out his skin and scraped everything out from underneath.

"That's _enough_ ," Lenalee says, getting up from the other couch and coming over to smile at him. Allen appreciates Lenalee, he really does. "Kanda, go brood in a corner, that's all your good for."

" _Lenalee_ ," Kanda says.

"Shoo," Lenalee says, twisting around slightly and planting her arms on her hips. Everything about her is pure intimidation, from the twist of her mouth to the flick of her long, long hair. Allen is once again struck with hair-envy, which he hurriedly suppresses, lest some of it show on his exhausted face.

Kanda rolls his eyes and lets out a long-suffering sigh, then picks up his shinai – it's probably a good thing that Allen didn't, y'know, do something stupid. Like attack him.

Tomorrow. He'll do it tomorrow. When his legs aren't jelly and his stomach isn't an empty black void of nothingness.

Right on cue, it gives a loud grumble, effectively halting any other conversation they could have.

"Turn it down!" Lavi says, popping his head into the common room. "I'm trying to _read in here_!"

"Ha, ha," Allen says, nursing his poor stomach with one hand. "Is there anywhere I can get food?" a horrible, horrible thought occurs. "…how often are you guys fed?"

"We just ask," Lenalee says. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I'll go ask Jerry to make something for you, okay?"

"That sounds _wonderful_ ," Allen says, fervent. "Doubles of everything."

Lenalee rolls her eyes. "Yeah," I remember. "Lavi! Entertain him!"

" _Entertain_ him?" Lavi says, storming out of his room and crossing his arms in a huff. "What am I, a clown?"

"I was a clown," Allen offers.

They both turn to stare at him. In the corner, Kanda lets out a derisive snort.

"You what?" Lavi says, eyes lighting up greedily. Allen briefly reconsiders all his major life choices, up to and including how running away from this literal asylum as soon as he was able. He'll remember this next time, oh yes, he will.

Not that there will be a next time. Allen has learned his lesson.

"A story for a story," he says. "I'll tell you about my time as a clown, and you two tell me why we're here."

Lavi gives him a sharp look, hidden behind a bland smile. "We're crazy," he says, waving vaguely at his face. "What, isn't it obvious? Here, let me go kill one of the minions –"

"No killing," Lenalee says. "We agreed after last time. No killing."

"Unless they're akuma," Lavi says.

 _See? See? SEE? I told you! I TOLD YOU! They know things, they're part of it all, they're working with the Millennium Earl –_

Allen winces and tries to tune Neah out. "Who's the Millennium Earl?"

Lenalee stills. "Did my brother put you up to this?" she says, sounding careful.

"What? The Chief?" Allen squints up at her. His stomach gives another unhappy grumble at the lack of food in his immediate vicinity. "…no? Why?"

Lenalee doesn't look convinced. Lenalee looks _very scary_.

"Nothing," she says after a long pause. She turns on her boots and starts walking towards the main entrance to the labs. "I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm going to go get you some food."

Bewildered, Allen gives Lavi a pleading look. "What's going on?"

"How much do you know?" Lavi says. "It's probably better to start there, then – well."

"Who's the Millennium Earl?" Allen says, wincing as Neah's mind-voice grows louder. "Komui said something about specialising in people who believed in demons?"

" _Criminals_ who believe in demons," Lavi says, sighing. He collapses backward onto the couch, knees pulling up so that he looks like a spikey pincushion. "That's the whole point of this…operation. They find us and they lock us up so that we can't hurt anyone else." Lavi gives a small laugh, glancing back to where Kanda is pretending Not To Listen. "Well, that doesn't really work most of the time, but hey. At least we're not in prison."

Allen glances around and concedes that yes, radioactivity aside, this place is probably better than being in prison. He would know.

…of course, maybe considering that One Time in Florida where Everything Went to Shit wasn't exactly a fair representation of the prison system.

"At least there's that," he finally says, when it becomes obvious that Lavi is waiting for a response.

Lavi gives him a half-smile. "My grandpa brought me here direct when I started getting too much to handle," he says. "It was awful. I couldn't distinguish who was real and who wasn't."

"You still can't distinguish who's real and who isn't," Kanda calls.

Lavi's face ticks in annoyance, but he doesn't acknowledge the interruption. "I was freaking out in public places, trying to pry people's faces off with forks so I could see if they could bleed – all sorts of fun stuff that I most certainly wouldn't try now."

Kanda grins nastily. "Of course not."

"Shut up," Lavi snaps, then turns back to Allen. "That all started happening a few years ago, when I started…remembering things. Or maybe that's not the best word to use. When I started waking up with this – this incredibly strong realisation that there were monsters in the world, and I was supposed to destroy them."

There's something off about the way he's talking – something about the way he's tilting his head, the way he's looking dead into Allen's eyes and not blinking. He's not lying, Allen thinks, but he's not telling the entire truth.

Then again, Allen isn't telling them the entire truth – and he has no plans to do any such thing. He just wants answers. As soon as he gets those, he's finding a way to break out of this place.

"Monsters?" he prompts, when Lavi looks lost in his own thoughts.

"Things," Lavi says. "Akuma. That's what I call them. That's what Lenalee calls them, too, when we talk about it."

"Which is never," Kanda says.

"Are you going to contribute _anything_ useful to this conversation?" Lavi says, turning around and leaning heavily on the back of the couch. "Or are you just going to be your usual broody self and try to stab me with a pen."

"They won't let me have pens," Kanda says, aggravation worming its way into his voice. "But I managed to get this back" – he hefts the shinai – "So are you really sure you want to tempt me?"

"Oh, _Yuu_ ," Lavi says with an exaggerated batt of his eyes. "Sweetheart, you should have just _told_ me you wanted rough se – hey, hey!"

Kanda doesn't even bother with his shinai, just leaps forward from out of the corner and flips Lavi over the couch and onto the floor. Allen thinks about intervening, but he's not really sure he won't make a total fool of himself. Besides, he can see Lenalee coming back. She'll sort it out. He trusts her.

Lenalee completely breaks that trust by _dropping his food_.

Allen stares at the spilled tray with the kind of shocked horror he normally reserves for Cross after a particularly brutal night at the poker tables.

"Lenalee," he says, and yes, there is definitely a quiver in his voice. "Lenalee, how could you?"

Lenalee isn't listening to him. She's too busy separating the homicidal teenagers attempting to rip each other apart on the floor. She's barely succeeding thanks to the timely scooping up the tray – brushing off the plates of food and ignoring Allen's whimper of despair – and using it as a makeshift clipboard-slash-baseball bat, bearing down on the two boys like an angel of fury descending from the heavens to wreak carnage across the –

…

…

 _You will be the Destroyer of Time_

…

…

 _Even so, I want to be a destroyer that can save others._

…

…

There's a girl – small, so small. She's human, how can she be human, how can –

"Let's play again sometime, _Al-len_!"

…

…

 _Sorry, Allen. I don't think you need to remember that yet._

Neah?

 _I'll keep a hold on these memories for just a little while longer, okay?_

Neah – _Neah_ , what are you –

 _Goodnight, Allen._

NEAH!

…

…

 **A/N** : TA-DA! LOOK! IT'S THE ELUSIVE PLOT, COME OUT OF HIDING! …um, sort of.

Thanks so much to everyone who liked/favourited, and a special thanks to **waterlit** , **Jazebeth** and **jy24** for reviewing! You guys really made my week :)

Sorry if it's a little choppy, I'm really tired and I wrote most of this today.

ALSO! A quick note on pairings – sorry to any shippers out there, but this is gonna be mostly gen. Worst I'm gonna do is Kanda/Alma if I make it far enough to introduce Alma (oops spoiler alert they're alive haha) and even that's going to be really subtle stuff.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week!

Mneme


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man.

 **Edited** 27/03/2017, because a shitty week is no excuse for shitty writing. I apologise.

…

…

"So, here's a list of things you'll need to clear with Jerry –"

Allen stares at the extensively covered (he absently flips it over) and apparently double-sided sheet of paper that he's just been handed. He tries to read the names, but his eyes just skim over the medical jargon without really taking anything in.

"Am I supposed to ingest…all of these?" he says, fingers tapping a faintly nervous rhythm against the side of his thigh. He has an uncomfortably certainty that if he _does_ try to process even half the prescriptions he's just been given, an indefinite coma is the best he can hope for.

"Not at the same time," Komui says, sounding appalled. Allen tries to make himself feel surprised, he really does, but it's just not in the cards. "That would kill you!" he pauses. Allen does not like that pause. "Probably."

Allen _really_ doesn't like that pause.

"We should do some tests on that," Komui continues, ignoring Allen's horrified look. He looks around from where he's sitting at his messy desk, snapping a ballpoint pen irritatingly in and out. "Hey, Reever! Make a note of that! We have some tests to run!"

Reever's head pops into the room. Everyone's been incredibly understanding about the whole By-The-Way-I-Lied-About-My-Resume-(And-Sort-Of-About-My-References) thing (though Allen isn't _too_ surprised by the last part, since he's fairly certain at least half the researchers downstairs fudged on their job applications. He has yet to see any reason as to _why_ they would decide on this, other than the obvious lack of moral restrictions placed on human test subjects. Judging from the number of applications he's had to sort through during his time as an intern, he's fairly sure there's no one salvageable amongst scientists), but ever since his Dramatic Discovery, Reever's been a little…stiff around him. Not impolite, just awkward.

"No," Reever says. Reever is probably Allen's favourite person ever (besides Jerry) because even if he's unhappy with hiring an unstable asylum reject with demon issues, he's also the only person who says No to the Chief and gets to keep his job. Allen has seen Johnny agonise over whether or not to add a fluorescent (and possibly poisonous) dying agent to the communal lunch buffet; Komui had apparently thought that glowing tongues would be funny.

"It's not _funny_!" Johnny had wailed, fisting the front of Allen's shirt and giving him a distinctly harassed look. "Nothing about this is _funny_! The others could kill me. Do you understand what they'd do to me, Allen? DO YOU?"

It had taken almost two hours to calm Johnny until he was coherent enough to actually complete the assigned task (which had consequently been postponed from breakfast to lunch), and by then he was behind in – well, every task he'd been assigned. That wasn't too much trouble, since everyone was behind on something or other (usually thanks to the Chief's Amazing Forethought, which resulted in more fires than what would probably be considered safe in a workplace that consisted almost 90% of discarded paper). Allen had avoided eating lunch in the common area and instead had gone to beg off Jerry, who had been more than happy to feed him whatever he wanted. The rest of the lab-minions had spent the evening pushing each other aside for the limited bathroom space, with the female scientists crowing over the fact that _their_ bathrooms were comparatively less crowded.

"But _Reever_ ," Komui whines, batting his eyelashes outrageously. Reever remains laudably stoic in the face of such horror.

"No," he says again, firmly but politely, and then he closes the door. Komui sticks out his tongue in a childish fit of pique, and then turns back to Allen with a low sigh. "Well, I suppose that we can't argue with the resident wet blanket."

Reever's feint voice can just be heard coming through the door: " _YOU'RE the wet blanket!"_

Komui ignores him, as he's want to do with anything that doesn't fit into his extremely narrow worldview. Up until a few days ago – Allen can't believe that he was only found out a _few days ago_ – Allen had always wondered what exactly it was that Komui _saw_. He wasn't the only one, either.

"I bet he hallucinates," Johnny says darkly, scrubbing a hardened glob of half-frozen/half-burned black goop that was stuck to his glasses. It doesn't come of, and he eventually gives up in favour of walking around half-blind. He caused three blocked lanes of foot-traffic, several minor injuries, and a fantastic small explosion that apparently fixed whatever had been wrong with the cooling system. "That's got to be it. I've seen him talking to himself."

"You talk to yourself," Allen says, though to be fair, it wasn't exactly an argument _against_.

"So do you," Johnny says. On his first day on the job, Allen would have tensed up. Now, however, he's become alarmingly desensitised to the weird (often incorrect, though sometimes they hit a little too close the mark) accusations levelled his way. It helps that he's reasonably sure that all the scientists working under Komui are functionally insane – it says something that some of the most sane conversations he's had around this place are with the certifiably crazy people. "And that's not the point. No, I mean – there's got to at least be something wrong with his head. Just…look what he's done to Reever."

In tandem, both look over to Reever, who is sitting underneath one of the desks and rocking back and forth, back and forth, a crazy look in his eyes and nails scraped underneath with something that is either tomato sauce or blood. Allen would not bet against either.

"He'll be fine," Allen says unconvincingly. "He gets departmentally mandates therapy sessions, right?"

"I think they cut that out of the budget last quarter," Johnny says. "Right after the Invsion of the Grey Lizards. And anyway, that's not what I'm saying. I don't think we're really people to him, you know? Maybe we're all just – just _things_ , things that he uses and discards. Like those animal paper-clips he keeps on his desk. He always uses them to join sheets of paper together, but then he never uses the paper. He throws it away. _Woosh_. Onto the floor, until something starts burning. Allen, Allen, maybe _we're_ not real. Maybe we're the pieces of paper scattered around the Chief's desk, waiting for the next fire to –"

Allen takes Johnny's shoulder and gently leads him towards the Rest Area, designated by the big signs that say REST AREA and the comfy-looking beanbags that are only slightly singed.

Komui's voice brings Allen's scattered thoughts very firmly to the present: "In any case, that's all I really wanted to discuss. We'll start you on drug-treatments tonight. The first few weeks are just spent adjusting the side-effects, and then we're going to look into what's most effective at –"

Allen quirks his eyebrow. "Silencing the voice?"

Komui's face splits into a wide grin. "More than one, then?"

"No, just one," Allen says.

"Interesting," Komui says, twirling the pen on the side of his finger. "Does this voice have a name, then?"

"He wants me to kill you," Allen says, keeping his voice bland.

"Oh?" Komui sits up straight. "Am I a demon, then?"

Allen's eyes narrow. "You what?"

"Oh, I'm not, then," Komui says. He doesn't sound either disappointed or relieved, which is almost as freaky as the questions. "That's good to know, at least. I don't suppose there's anyone else you think is a – _demon_ , on staff?"

"…no," Allen says after a long, suspicious moment. Neah is conspicuously quiet, tucked into the far corner of his mind. He's been subdued for a while, not talking unless he's really got something to say. Allen's not worried, per say, more – nervous. Silence never bodes well in any context, but especially when the silence is from the insane voice that only you can hear. In Allen's experience, crazy people are rarely crazy without cause. "You'd have known if I thought so."

"Yes, I guessed," Komui says, flicking the pen's inky tip back into its socket. Allen twitches, but very firmly does not lunge across the desk and rip the pen from Komui's grasp. _See,_ he tells an unresponsive Neah. _I've got self-control._

 _Sure, kid_ , Neah says, and then goes back to sulking.

"I mean, if there _had_ been a demon, we'd have a dead body to worry about, right?"

"Oh, do you see them as dead bodies?" Allen says, feigning surprise. Well, so long as he's here, he may as well figure out what everyone else thinks is real. It was always so much easier to fake sanity through mimicry; it's unfortunately the only role model he's ever had for an extended period of time is Cross. Allen is almost wistful about how well he could have integrated into society if he'd been around normal people more.

Then he really thinks about it, and decides that it's probably for the best.

Still, no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Komui flips the pen in his fingers, a flash of movement that almost disguises the way his other hand jots down a brief note on a spare piece of paper. _Ambidextrous_ , Allen thinks. _Interesting_.

"Of course not," Allen says, leaning forward. His prescription paper crinkles between his fingers as he moves to brace his arms against his knees, so he puts it on the table to mitigate the risk of further damage. He doesn't want to take the risk of Jerry making something that will make him sick, even if he has basically zero intention of subjecting himself to being a lab-rat for the rest of his life. From what Allen's seen, he hasn't built up nearly enough goodwill with the rest of the scientists to make them go easy on him with the trial-drugs, and he's seen enough of the creation process to label everything in the lab as DODGY, and possibly BIOHAZARD. "Demon's don't bleed, of course."

Komui flashes him another grin. "Oh?" he says. There's something entirely too relaxed about the way he's sitting – slouched forward, hands pressed lightly over the table, wrists held loose. "So what _do_ they do, then?"

Allen pretends to think about it. It's almost a relief, talking about what he can see – almost, but not quiet. There's still this sick little feeling in the pit of his stomach, hollow and heavy at the same time. _What if_ , he thinks, a mantra: _What if, what if, what if –_

"Well," he says, sprawling out exaggeratedly over the chair and tapping one finger on his knee. "Their skin sort of peels off in layers – like fish scales. Or feathers. And there's black bone underneath everything, like someone sewed a charred skeleton into new skin. I tried pulling it out, once, and it felt cold. Like metal."

"And you really don't see any blood," Komui says.

"Demons don't bleed," Allen repeats. "The skin just dissolves after a while. There's always something etched into the skull, though. A name."

"A name," Komui says. "And how many…names, have you seen?"

"Why officer," Allen says, blinking. "Are you suggesting that I've done this before? I would _never_ stoop so low as to kill someone, you hear?"

"Said the spider to the fly," Komui says. He holds up both hands, ballpoint pen still spinning in lazy circles against his thumb. "I'm not writing anything down, I swear. There's no recording devices in here, either."

"Forgive me if I don't believe you," Allen says. "Because I don't believe you."

"Allen, we're only looking out for you," Komui says. "Cross Marian sent you here for a reason."

"Well, obviously," Allen says. "He got tired of the body count when there wasn't even a trail of bodies. It's all very tragic, you know."

"Life's tragic," Komui says. "I assume the others have talked to you about why they're here? Why we specialise in demonic hallucinations."

"Oh, is _that_ what you're calling it?" Allen says. "You know, I always thought they were more like machines than demons. Metal bones. A train dressed up in human skin."

"Are you uncomfortably?" Komui says. "Would you like to go back to your room?"

"Is that all you wanted to talk about, then?" Allen says, standing up. He picks up the pieces of paper and tries once again to look it over, but alas, his patchy education comes back into play once again, and he's left with something resembling a headache. "A list of experimental drugs that may or may not kill me?"

"If all taken _at the same time_ ," Komui stresses. "That's the important part in all of this, you know. We're just trying to look out for you."

Allen smiles and nods, smiles and nodes: he's learned _this_ routine from route. "Yes," he says. "Of course."

…

…

"So – why _are_ you here, Lavi?"

"Oh, Allen, aren't you a little young to be having an existential crisis? I could wax philosophy at you if you want, but no one ever ends up satisfied –

" _Lavi._ The asylum. Why are a _patient_ here?"

"You're no fun. Fine, fine – where to start. Hmm, well. I had this research project."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Hush, the intellectual is talking. It was fascinating. My grandpa – he was the one taking care of me – he called me crazy, but he helped get sources and everything. He's a historian, like me."

"You're a _historian_?"

"What? Allen, why would you even _say_ that? Don't I _look_ like a historian?"

"…a pirate historian, then."

"I'll take it. In any case, I had this _idea_ in my head, see. All the history books, they were missing something. Something big. So I kept on searching and searching and –

"The government caught on, and you were sent here?"

"Ha! Yeah, right. Like I was going to get caught by the _government_ , pfft."

"What _did_ happen, then?"

"Okay, so I was so caught up in gathering sources, and I had everything stored in my house. All the originals, all the backups. And I was on the verge of this _massive_ breakthrough, when…"

" _When_?"

"Well, I snapped. Apparently. A _psychotic break_ fuelled by stress, is what the shrinks said. Sounds fun, doesn't it? All I know is that when I woke up, the house had burned down around me. All those beautiful sources – gone!"

"Wait, did you _set them on fire_?"

"Presumably. That's what my grandpa thinks, anyway. All my backups and USB's and scans – all melted. I'd been keeping some stuff in a safe deposit box, too, but moths got into them or something. Grandpa said all these black butterflies swarmed out when he went to look at it."

"Lavi…"

"But that's not even the best part! Cause when grandpa came to drag me out of my room, I'd made a fairly decent attempt to stay out my eye. With a needle."

"I – huh. Okay."

"But I _do_ look rather handsome in an eyepatch, though, so everything turned out okay in the end."

"I'm just – going to go back to my book now."

…

…

 **A/N** : Thank you SO, SO much to everyone who liked and followed. Special thanks to **jy24** , **LightMyBulb** , **waterlit** and **Jazebeth** for REVIEWING! My heart, it continues to beat.

See you next week!

Mneme


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man (it's all very sad)

…

…

"Hey, vegetable. Wake up."

Allen's been awake for a while, but he doesn't really open his eyes until a rough shove sends him off his bed and onto the uncomfortably cold floor. He also lets out a few startled curses, because while he _had_ been aware of the intruder, he had _not_ been aware of how close they had been.

"What the _hell_ ," Allen says, rolling onto his back and pushing himself to his feet.

Kanda is standing above him, spine stretched out so that he's taking advantage of every inch between them. Allen does not appreciate being threatened in the middle of the night by the _one guy_ in the facility that he's never had a proper conversation with, and he does _not_ appreciate the blatant use of height differences. He had enough of that sort of bullshit at the circus, and he doesn't want to start that up again.

"Oh, good," Kanda says, eyeing him. "You're not completely useless."

"I am not _useless_ ," Allen hisses. He thinks about drawing himself up, thinks about trying to prove that _he can be tall too_ , thank you very much…but he's got a horrible suspicion that Kanda is, in fact, taller than him. Cross always said that his appetite had stunted his growth as a kid, and this isn't the first time that he was seriously regretting his lightning-fast metabolism – of course, most of those times included food-related regrets, rather than height-related regrets. "And why are you here?"

"I don't _want_ to be here," Kanda says, sneering. "I don't exactly have a choice. Lenalee says we have to bring you up to speed."

"I _am_ up to speed," Allen says. "Unless you're talking about my mental faculties, which are slightly compromised by all the drugs I didn't manage to throw up. Those are slightly slower than usual."

"Well, that shouldn't be too much of a problem, since you're an idiot either way," Kanda says. He kicks back onto the bed like he owns the place, shinai resting loosely in his grip. Allen is once again tempted to ask just _why_ Kanda always seems to have it on her person, but he decides to do it later, when there's clear room to dodge and less things to trip over. "Let's get this over with. You've got the basics down-pat, I assume?"

"If you're talking about the demons, then yes. I am aware that they exist and are killing people."

"Great, that's fifty percent of the trauma," Kanda says. "You know about the whole 'war on humanity' thing too, right?"

"The Millennium Earl," Allen says, and there's something chilly in the pit of his stomach. There are words that he's supposed to say, here – things that he knows but doesn't really, patterns that don't fit well behind his eyes. "He's behind all of this."

"You catch on quick," Kanda says. "I'm almost impressed."

"So are we all crazy?"

"If we're crazy," Kanda says, slow and condescending. "Then we're all also serial killers. Why do you think they'd bother to lock us all up in here if there wasn't something big going on?"

Allen gives a half-shrug, uncomfortable under Kanda's sudden scrutiny.

"Look, beansprout," Kanda says.

" _Beansprout_?" Allen repeats, more than a little outraged. "I am not a _beansprout_ , or a _vegetable_ , or a –"

Kanda ignores him. "The others, they don't remember shit, but I do. Must've been a side-effect from how I got here, but I remember bits and pieces. Things are different, here. There's a lot going on under the stage that we can't see, and you're probably going to be in the centre of it."

Allen squints up at him. "What do you mean, _remember_?"

"That's not important," Kanda says with a huff. "I'm just here to make sure you understand your position. You're not irreplaceable, because no one here knows what the hell they're doing."

"Wait, so I _wouldn't_ be irreplaceable if they were doing their jobs right? I feel so loved."

"Shut up," Kanda says. "You said that Cross was your guardian for a while, right?"

Allen lights up. "Wait, so can _you_ tell me why all these people seem to take his word as law?"

Kanda rolls his eyes, leaning back further against the wall and twisting the shinai between his hands. "Cross is…weird," he says. "He doesn't fit properly here. Knows too much, I think. The higher ups let him do whatever he likes, so long as he's not being obvious at the body count."

Allen can't help but rock back. "Wait," he says. "Wait, wait – he _kills people_?"

A slow, wicked smile grows on Kanda's face. It brightens up his pale skin and casts a dark shadow across his eyes; it's unnatural, that smile. Allen wonders if that's what people see when he frees the demons from their bodies. He hopes not.

"You don't know?" Kanda says, hands tightening on the worn leather grip of the shinai. "Oh, this is _perfect_. You've been out-conned, Allen Walker. Cross Marian played you for a fool."

Allen bristles, eyes cataloguing everything in his room that he can use for a fight. His knuckles are usually enough, but Kanda's baiting him – Allen isn't the only one itching for a brawl, and neither of them can afford it. He feels kind of cheated, that he has to be the bigger person in this situation.

 _Why are you still here_?

Shut up, Allen thinks.

 _No, really, what are you doing? You should have left by now. You've gained everything worth gaining, and Cross is almost certainly out of the country by now._

"Shut up," Allen hisses, scraping his palm against the side of his head.

Kanda's eyebrow ticks up, face transforming from smug to furious. " _Excuse_ me," he says, shoulders tensing.

Allen glances up at him. "Not you," he says. "Though you should shut up as well."

Kanda draws back slightly, fingers loosening around his shinai. It's such an impractical weapon, especially in such close quarters; Allen doesn't know why he continues to hold onto it like it's the answer to all things. "Ah," he says. "The –"

Neah starts laughing, loud enough to drown out anything else Kanda says. _You're hopeless_ , he says. _Pathetic. Weak. You think this_ creature _can tell you anything I haven't already told you_?

"I'm sorry," Allen says, and he's a little dazed from the suddenness of the mental assault, because his ears are ringing. "Could you repeat that?"

Kanda's eyes narrow. "The –"

 _DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, ALLEN_.

"Yeah," Allen says, past the throbbing headache that's bloomed full-force behind his temples. "I heard none of that."

Kanda starts laughing.

Allen draws back towards the other side of the room, more unnerved that he wants to admit. From what he's seen of Kanda, laughing isn't part of the usual routine – in fact, its' so far out of left field that it's more than a little disconcerting.

" _Well_ ," Kanda says. "You're _crazy_."

"I thought this entire conversation was about how I _wasn't_ crazy for killing demons," Allen says.

"No, sorry, there's no way we can help you," Kanda says. "Your best bet for surviving the next five years is to pack up and ship out."

" _Surviving_? Is that a threat?"

"Oh, I don't make threats," Kanda says. "Not to fellow –"

 _STOP!_

"– in any case. I'll kill you when you're no longer useful."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"You're damaged goods, Walker," Kanda says. "Useless until you've got the leech out of your head. From what I remember…" his forehead creases. Inside Allen's head, Neah screams. "Well, that doesn't matter anymore."

" _Remember_?" Allen repeats. "You're implying that this has all…happened before."

"Not really," Kanda says, getting off the bed and flicking out the shinai. It sweeps casually through the air and stops millimetres from Allen's throat. Allen doesn't even try to dodge; he just stands there, chin held up, eyes blank.

"Is there something you wanted, then?" Allen says.

Kanda gives him a long look, and then smirks, pulling the shinai away and resting it at his hip. "Not really," he repeats, turning towards the door with a dismissive flick of his hair. "I'm wasting my time, here. If you want to know more, talk to Lenalee. If you haven't already decided to run."

Allen grits his teeth. "I'm not a coward," he says.

"Oh, for sure," Kanda says. "Keep moving forward, isn't that right?"

Allen gives a start, lunging forward. " _How did you_ –"

Kanda flicks his wrist and reverses the shinai, slamming the butt of the bamboo blade into Allen's stomach. Allen gives an _oomph_ and stumbles back, reflexively gagging.

"If you have any more questions," Kanda says. "Don't ask me. You're a hopeless case, Allen Walker. I don't talk to people who are cursed."

" _What do you mean –"_ Allen says, fury biting all the way down to his bones, but Kanda's already out the door.

…

…

The first time Lenalee Li met Kanda Yuu, the world was very obviously falling apart, and people looked to them for answers. Two small children being held hostage as soldiers, as weapons, as war heroes and death seekers. Lenalee just wanted to survive without her world falling to pieces, and Kanda didn't care about anything anymore.

The second time they meet, there's still the necessity of death, but not the urgency. At least, there's no outward urgency shown by the people once terrified to lose. This time, the invisible war doesn't even brush against those unaffected. It's a paradox, a shard of glass steeped in alcohol. It burns with every cut.

"Why are you here?" eight-year-old Lenalee Li asks the quiet boy who sits in the corner and glares at everyone. "What did you do, that they had to put you in here?"

"What, didn't you kill someone, too?"

Lenalee starts shaking her head, and it's horrible, everything's horrible. She can still see the way he snapped against her hands, the way the knife felt in her fingers. "I didn't kill anyone," she says, sitting next to the angry boy and shivering.

"Did they find a corpse?" the boy says. Lenalee doesn't say anything, but that seems to be answer enough. "Then you've killed someone. Suck it up."

Lenalee buries her face into her knees. "I want my brother."

The boy tries to scoot away, but Lenalee isn't having any of it. He's the first person who's been willing to talk to her – properly talk to her; he answers her questions and everything. They're not answers she likes, or wants, but they're interactions that are almost too bright to bare. When was the last time someone looked at her and saw a face?

"Please let me go," the boy says, squirming to get free from Lenalee's crushing grip. There's something almost robotic about his voice, something flat and forced that niggles at the back of Lenalee's mind. _This is_ , she thinks. _This is…_

"I want my _brother_ ," Lenalee wails, and does the very opposite of letting go.

…

…

"Have we found any more anachronisms?"

Komui glances back at his desk, pursing his lips. In front of him is a black screen punctured with a green line that waves like crazy every time the person on the other end deigns to speak. Even after years of working here, he hasn't been able to properly identify just _who_ was giving him orders. It hadn't mattered, at first.

It matters now.

"No," Komui says, and for once he's telling the truth. "We haven't found anything significant."

"These children are the key," the voice says.

Komui bites his tongue to keep from saying, _That's my sister you're talking about, here_. He wonders about that, sometimes – wonders why they bothered to hire him at all, why the bothered to promote him. He's not objective. He's been very, very clear about his lack of objectiveness from day one.

Even worse, he's become disturbingly _fond_ of the rest of them. He tried not to, especially after the organisation came to take away the last few he'd been supervising, but it's hard. Komui's even felt protective urges towards _Allen_ , and he's only been here a few weeks. Komui's disappointed in himself.

 _You're here for Lenalee_ , he tells himself, and he mostly means it.

"Of course," he says. "We're trying out best, over here."

"Try harder. I want a full report on the Walker boy sent through by tomorrow morning."

"Of course," Komui says. His back aches from being at attention for so long, but he dares not push his luck too much. The last few weeks have been horribly unproductive, and he can't afford any more cause for criticism. Not from the higher ranks, in any case. "Right away."

"Very well."

Then the screen dies in a brief burst of static, the green line lost amidst a thousand different pieces of colour. Komui closes his eyes and sinks back into the chair at his desk, spine shaky.

"Chief?"

Komui doesn't want to open his eyes, but he does, because he has to. Reever is at the door, face set into an uncharacteristic picture of concern.

"What happened now?" Komui says. He doesn't like how tired his sounds, but there's nothing much he can do about it now. He reaches out with his foot to kick the television-set closed, hiding it behind a wooden cabinet door.

"Here's those toxicology reports you asked for," Reever says, slamming them down onto his desk with more force than was strictly necessary. "And some files from the last case. They didn't find anything, by the way, but you're going to need to skim over them just to be sure."

Reever always does this, Komui thinks with grim amusement. His own special way of making sure Komui's still in one piece.

"We're running out of time," Komui says, grabbing the files and flipping through them. Nothing, nothing, nothing… "I can't keep holding out forever."

"You'll figure something out. Probably."

Komui gives his second-in-command a sour look. "Your faith in me is staggering."

Reever shrugs, and then gives a small yawn. "Remember to file those budget forecasts for next week before you head off," he says. "I don't want to deal with them at the last minute."

Komui grins. "Ah," he says. "Yes. Those budget forecasts. About that."

Reever's swings around from where he was sauntering towards the door, eyes sharp enough to cut. " _What did you do_?"

This is too easy. "They may no longer exist."

" _What. Did. You. So_."

Ooh, scary. "It's Johnny's fault!" Komui says, shamelessly throwing his subordinate under the bridge. "He was the one who wanted to run some tests on my computer. When he gave it back to me, everything was in French, and it took _ages_ to fix the settings for that."

"I hate you," Reever says, and he sounds a little helpless. "I really, honestly, truly hate you."

"I hate you too!" Komui says cheerfully, kicking his legs up onto the desk. "Don't worry, I'll pay you overtime!"

Reever slams the door in his way out hard enough that the hinges rattle. Komui closes his eyes and lets his body sag, lets the tension bleed out from his bones.

After all, misery loves company.

…

…

 **A/N** : Thanks so much for everyone who liked and followed! Um, no reviews this week :( was the last chapter that bad?

ANYWAY, an introduction to other perspectives! And again, some more plot. I'm so impressed with myself, I'm never this productive. Btw, you're probably going to be seeing a lot of scene-cuts from now on, I just find it easier to write like this.

See you next week!

Mneme


	12. Chapter 12

**Declaimer** : I don't own D Gray-man, it's such a shame, what with my fantastic plotting skills, consistent humour and consistent character development (bwahaha).

I'll edit this later (god this is so messy) but I need to post now or I won't meet my deadline :P off to go work on my actual uni work! Woohoo!

…

…

" _You are the DESTROYER OF –"_

Allen wakes up with a pounding heart, insides twisting into something unnatural. Neah shifts around in the back of his skull but doesn't say anything, which is unusual in of itself. Allen is torn between twin desires: go back to sleep (he's more than exhausted) and go look for a distraction. It's the distraction that eventually wins-out, mostly because sleep seems a nigh-on impossible task.

There's no one out in the common room, and Allen finds himself growing restless sitting there in the dark. The high windows cast beams of moonlight across the couches; if he tries, he can probably climb up high enough to smash one in and just leave.

Kanda wants him to leave. Allen finds himself pondering it all, finds himself thinking: _Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea_.

Neah isn't trying to convince him of anything, which – again, that's something strange. For as long as Allen's been aware of Neah, there's been an acute lack of transparency that implied a greater outlook to life. Allen's had enough lies to last a lifetime, and he's a better liar than most. He can tell when someone's not being upfront, even if that someone is settled comfortably in his own mind.

Neah has an agenda. It was always a little strange, thinking about Neah as someone else – this is before he figured out that he wasn't insane, that the things he saw were real. They have to be real, because otherwise everything he has done is an act of defiance in the face of sanity, and Allen can't even begin to contemplate something like that.

In a way, then, he's grateful that he's here. Lenalee and Lavi and (god) even Kanda, they're proof that things aren't always what they seem to be. _I want to fly_ , Lenalee says, and then she bends the universe over backwards to make it happen.

"I could leave," Allen contemplates out loud.

 _You could leave_ , Neah agrees, noncommitting.

Those first few months, Allen tried figuring it out – tried figuring how to read Neah, how to break past the tight smile and see into the lidless eyes. It had driven Cross ballistic, the lack of attention he paid to anything other than the lining of his skull, but it had been worth it. Not in the sense that he was now able to understand every idiosyncrasy of Neah, of course – no, that was impossible. Allen's given up (as much as he can give up on anything). But it's given him clues, given him a vague understanding of things.

One of the major drawbacks to believing himself insane was that Allen had genuinely not believed himself in possession of enough imagination to create someone like Neah. As much as he enjoyed fabricating interesting sob-stories that would get him a room for the night and some food besides, it takes a special kind of insane to think up another person in your head, and Allen just doesn't have it. At least, Allen is fairly certain that he doesn't have it.

Thinking himself insane has never gotten him anywhere, anyway.

"You know these people," Allen says, testing out the words on his tongue. There's a feint pulse in her forehead, a throb in his temples.

 _No_ , Neah says.

"Give it up," Allen tells him, rolling his eyes. He's a liar enough to know when he's being lied to. "I don't understand. How do you know them? What are they?"

 _None of your concern_ , Neah says. _Not anymore_.

"Everything about them is my concern," Allen says. "Every time they open their mouths, I want to cry."

 _You cry at everything, anyway_ , Neah says. _You cry for demons. No one cries for demons_.

"I cry for their souls," Allen snaps, and then winces. "I mean, I _cried_. Past tense."

 _No, you're sick in the head. You cry for the demons_ , Neah says. _All the time. No use lying to ME, Allen Walker. There's no getting rid of me._

"Yeah, don't I know it," Allen says. "But we're getting off-track. You can't distract me from this, Neah. Not this time. This is important."

 _It's always important_ , Neah says. _And these children are of little significance in the overall grand scheme of things. Best leave them here to rot_.

"Aha!" Allen crows. "So you _do_ want to leave."

 _When have my opinions ever mattered to you_?

Allen snorts at the whiney tone. "Yeah, sure," Allen says. "Not like I'm not ankle-deep in blood because of your insistence. I love being considered a serial killer, really. It's a lot of fun."

 _You're smart enough to figure things out_ , Neah says. _Or, you should be. You've always been a tricky one, Allen Walker_.

"Ah," Allen says, leaning forward and gripping his knees. "So you do know them. I thought so."

There's a small pause, then: _How do you figure that?_

"The bastard earlier mentioned something about remembering stuff, didn't he?" Allen says. "You've been ranting forever about random stuff that doesn't make any sense to me. I figured my brain was just scrambled, but hey, things are starting to fit into place."

There's another pause, longer this time. _Guess what,_ he finally says. _I'm not talking to you about this_.

Allen sighs in disappointment. "You sound like a five-year-old," he says.

Neah takes it upon himself to prove his maturity by doing the mental equivalent of slamming a door closed.

…

…

Lenalee is making Allen dizzy.

"C'mon," she says, stretched out across the ribbon like a boneless doll. She's got one leg hooked up high and the other at an odd angle, her arms spread out in a parody of wings. She's looking down at him and grinning, as alive as he's ever seen her. "It's fun, I promise."

They're in the corner of the labs, put there under the vague excuse of "physical testing" and then left largely to their own devices. There are guards, of course, but there are always guards. Lenalee says they didn't really start upping security until Kanda started killing people, but Allen's not entirely unconvinced that they just came as a two-for-one package special with the house itself. Security has an extremely creepy air around them, dressed all in white robes that look strange against the backdrop of high-tech video-feeds and buzzing computer screens.

"I think I'll stay down here," Allen says, because he knows _exactly_ how much training it takes to make your body moves like liquid. He's happy to stay as a clown for the rest of his life.

 _Ha_ , Neah thinks.

Lenalee rolls down the fabric, until she's hovering just a metre above his head. She stretches out in the air like it's nothing, like what she's doing is as easy to her as breathing.

"Boring," she says, twisting upside down to pull a funny face. Her hair hangs low, brushing against the top of Allen's head. "C'mon, it's fun. I had to beg my brother for ages before he let me do this."

Allen frowns up at her. "What, acrobatics?"

"Flying," Lenalee says, and her face is weirdly wistful. She wraps the fabric around her ankle and freefalls, grinning at his startled jump. "I'm almost weightless, up here. I'm not high enough to do any real damage – at least, that's what my brother insisted."

"And…why am I here?" Allen says.

"Because Kanda's boring and Lavi's annoying and I haven't had a chance to show off to anyone for _ages_ ," Lenalee says, pulling herself effortlessly over her feet and climbing higher without any apparent effort. Allen's forearms ache in a kind of sympathetic agony; he remembers the way other performers always complained about torn muscles and bloody fingers.

"You're very good," Allen says obediently.

Lenalee laughs at him, executing a perfect mid-air flip. She almost sparkles like this, face flushed, eyes as bright as Allen's ever seen them.

"If you keep looking at her like that, the Chief's going to kill you."

Allen glances over his shoulder, grinning as Johnny stumbles out from behind one of the desks to come to a standstill next to him. As usual, his lab-coat is stained with a range of dark substance (one of which looks like coffee, another of which looks suspiciously like blood). Allen's been around the general insanity of the labs to even try asking for an explanation, because it probably just isn't worth the confusion.

Johnny's probably handled his transition from 'overworked and perpetually tired intern' to 'actually insane patient' with a surprising amount of grace – that is to say, Allen still isn't entire sure Johnny actually _knows_ that he's been demoted from lab-rat to test-rat. He talks to Allen like he would, keeps trying to shove half-full test beakers of unidentifiable (and possibly lethal) liquid at him so he can "go make sure that someone's remembered to fill up the coffee pot" and then _doesn't come back for two hours_ (this has happened more than once, Allen's disappointed in himself for being weak enough for it to become a trend), and lets Allen go wherever he likes when he's apparently on babysitting duty.

"Like what?" he says, instead of pressing for answers. He'll get them eventually, he knows. It's only a matter of time.

"Like you think she's pretty," Johnny says around a yawn. His glasses are painfully askew over his nose, and Allen's fingers itch to fix them.

"She is pretty," Allen says, frowning.

"Well, yes," Johnny says. "But we're not supposed to know that."

Allen confusion must have shown, because Johnny gives a full-body twitch that indicates that he's about to relay some incredibly unpleasant information. That twitch had characterised a large portion of his initial period of integration.

"A few years ago, we had another intern," Johnny says, voice slow and cautious. He keeps looking around to scan the peripheral, but Allen isn't sure if that's because he's looking for eavesdroppers or because he's overdosed on coffee again and has developed a nervous tic. "His name was Bak, and he transferred in from our Asia branch."

"Wait, you have an Asia branch?" Allen says. "Aren't you an insane asylum? What is this, a chain store?"

"That's a long, complicated, unnecessary story," Johnny says, eyes darting left. Allen wishes (once again) that sleep deprivation didn't make people so hard to read. He finds it so difficult to tell if someone's lying or genuinely hallucinating. "But yes, we got an – _exchange_ intern, of sorts."

"I don't think internships work like that," Allen says.

Johnny ignores him. Allen is getting depressingly used to being ignored – then again, it's not like many people really listened to him _before_ he was locked up here. The only time people are really interested in what he says if when he's lying, and that always leaves a kind of awkwardness between encounters that Allen doesn't enjoy trying to fill. He once had a nightmare fourteen-hour train ride where three people from different countries who _all apparently recognised the twelve-year-old orphan with a scar_ were aboard and kept on trying to talk to him.

 _Oh, little Jeremy_! One of them had said, _Did you ever find that rotten uncle of yours_?

 _Louis! It's been so long. I hope you caught that early boat – you left so suddenly…_

 _Duncan, look at you! So grown up, so manly!_

Keeping them all separate from each other had been an effort in logistics that still left Allen dizzy; it wouldn't have been very practical for all three of them to realise they'd been scammed out of a significant amount of money, especially with Cross lying in the corner and alternating between snoozing and boozing.

"Bak was the son of one of the former heads of – well, that's not important. What _is_ important is that he somehow managed to _fall in love_ with Lenalee within two seconds of meeting her, which…well. Did not go over well with the Chief."

"…what do you mean by that?"

"Things," Johnny says, and then he starts to shiver. Allen worriedly reaches out to take his pulse, but Johnny steps back in blind panic. " _Things_."

"Ah, Johnny, there you are – I need you to run some tests on this pocket-watch we –"

Johnny screams and bolts backwards, diving underneath one of the desks and huddling there like his life depends on it. Reever gives him a long stare, and then decides that it just isn't worth it and turns to Allen. He's got dark circles under his eyes. Allen can't remember having ever seen Reever _without_ dark circles under his eyes – if he actually walked in one day to find the anyone from the science division fresh-faced and starry-eyed, he might actually scream.

"Hi, Lenalee," Reever says, waving up to where Lenalee is still managing to hold herself up. She waves back, and then releases of the material to wind herself back to the ground. She lands with light feet, grin stretching from ear to ear.

"Reever!" she says, coming over. There's a feint sheen of sweat covering her skin, but Allen is impressed that the results of so much physical exertion aren't more obvious. "It's been a while since you came down to see us."

"Your brother's been running me ragged," Reever says, mouth twisting into a snarl of pure hatred. Lenalee laughs, like that's the cutest thing she's ever heard.

"So what do we owe this pleasure, then?"

"Ah, I actually needed Johnny to do some – it doesn't matter," Reever says, fingers clenching around a small package with POST stamped all over it. "How are you doing? The Chief was kind of worried about the new diet, but he hasn't had time to come down and check on you properly."

Lenalee scowls. "He works himself too hard."

Allen watches with interest as Reever's eye ticks. "No," he says. "He really doesn't –"

Things start happening all at once:

The lights stutter and die out, the bulbs exploding in their sockets and drowning the floor in shattered glass.

A low, continuous alarm begins to sound as the bioluminescent star stickers pasted over every available surface (that had been an interesting weekend) recognise the sudden lack of light and begin to flow an ominous red.

Neah starts panicking.

…

…

 **A/N** : Yo! I feel like I should warn readers that my writing is sooo sketchy, and a lot of what I do is from a week-by-week basis, so if you're looking for coherent story hahaha :')

ANYWAY! Thank you to everyone who favourited and followed! Also (especially) thanks so much to: **jy24** , **Cleo2467** , **waterlit** , **Jazebeth** (x2 :P) and **Jinx** for reviewing! Sorry if it seemed like I was guilt-tripping you over chapter 10, I kind of was. Comments/reviews seriously mean to the world to me, of course, but I don't want you to feel pressured into writing one if you're not comfortable.

In any case, see you next week!

Mneme


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer** : I don't own -man

Enjoy! (once again, I'll come back and edit this later when I'm not in such a rush :) I figured I should get the chapter out before things get crazy again, haha).

…

…

"Move it!"

"Reever, what…?"

Reever doesn't wait for them to actually move, just shoves his postal-package into Lenalee's arms and then herds them back into the compound, slamming the door shut. Allen tries the door, but the knob jams halfway down, and won't turn no matter how much pressure he puts on it.

"Hey!" Lenalee says, banging against the door with her free hand while keeping the package secured to her chest. "What's going on? Reever!"

When Koumi's voice comes over the intercom, it lacks its usual exuberance: "Could everyone please get to their emergency stations? That'd be really great!" then the line cuts dead and everything fades into an annoying sort of static that fizzles through the air.

Allen and Lenalee exchange dark looks.

Lavi's already in the common room, eye bright and smile gone. He's leaning against the wall and glaring at the security camera that's perched precariously in the corner; Allen's seen it being kicked to the ground more than once, though it never seems to be replaced with any semblance of strengthening the support. Allen supposes that the scientists have just given up on surveying them 24/7 at this point – partially because it's so expensive to keep replacing the cameras, and also because they just don't seem to have the time. Though _what_ scientists who were employed by a _mental asylum_ had to prioritize other than the actual patients is beyond him.

"I don't know what's going on," he says as soon as they enter the room properly, and he doesn't sound happy about that fact.

"Why would we need _emergency stations_?" Lenalee says.

Allen can think of a few things, most of which begin with 'Radiation leak', 'neurotoxic gas breach', 'mutated acid spillage' or 'that giant killer monkey that we pretend doesn't live in the basement – yeah, that one – well, it got loose _despite_ all those precautions we took against it, and we're kind of having some trouble with containment –' (and those are only his first guesses).

Still, there's something disconcerting about the way everyone is moving around them. Reever had looked panicked, which was almost impressive – Allen's seen the man stand down a pissed-off rhino-cow hybrid ( _that_ had been a weird day) without so much as a flinch, arming himself with numerous tranquiliser shots until the creature had been a sleeping mess at his feet. Allen isn't sure if he wants to know just _what_ would make a man like that shove them and then run to his supposed emergency station.

Neah's a constant distraction, pacing around in the back of his mind. Allen gets the impression of a black silhouetted room and slashing white mouths before he can properly contextualise anything; the moment Neah realises he's projecting, the images shut off like a tap being twisted too tight the other way.

 _We need to leave_ , Neah says.

"We need to _what_?" Allen says. "What are you talking about? Has this got to do with the emergency?"

 _We need to leave_ , Neah repeats.

Allen's eyes narrow. "What do you know?"

"Nothing," Lavi repeats with a tired drawl, face scrunched up with ire. "They've never panicked badly enough to set off _this_ many alarms. Usually it's just one or two. I'm counting at least ten, if not more."

"Not you," Allen says, with perhaps more force than is strictly necessary. He's got a bad feeling sinking into the pit of his stomach, icy and drenched with fire all at once. "No, I'm talking to –"

Lavi's eyes brighten in understanding. "Ah," he says. "The –

 _We DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS_ , Neah says. _We need to LEAVE_.

"He wants us to get out of here," Allen says, wondering if he should really be relaying a message from the voice in his head. "Thoughts?"

"I'm not leaving my brother," Lenalee says immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. She's still dressed in her gymnastics gear, and sweat clings in a silver sheen across her forehead. "I just want to know what's going on."

"We're under attack," Kanda says from where he's sitting in the far corner, shinai balancing on his knees and eyes closed. "Obviously."

"From _what_?" Allen growls, storming forward so that he's standing tall over the older boy. "If you know something, then _tell_ us."

"I don't know shit," Kanda says, and there's something so terribly cruel about the way he's smiling. Allen, once again, feels the inexplicable urge to just _punch his lights out_ and get it over with, because by now it's practically an inevitable conclusion. "But I figured – hey, everyone's running around like panicked marsupials, there are alarms going off that I didn't even know _existed_ – and, trust me, I grew up here; I've heard them all. Also, Johnny just started screaming, _We're under attack_! Right outside the door."

The three of them pause, straining their ears – and sure enough, the feint sound of Johnny's voice permeates through the door.

…

…

Reever slaps Johnny on the back of his head. "Stop panicking!"

Johnny falls forward, tears glistening underneath his thinly rimmed glasses. "You don't understand, boss!" he cries, waving his hands around in a kind of maniacal nervous tic. "They're _here_ , the anachronisms – what if they –

"I understand perfectly well," Reever says, fingers twitching for a cigarette. He tries to kick the awful habit every few days, but something always seems to come up just at the wrong time, and pretty much the only thing that lets him keep _some_ semblance of sanity is to fuel his blood with tobacco. At least the Chief had decided against implementing another coffee ban in order to supplement budget-cuts (the coffee budget apparently took up almost a fifth of their entire funding, which doesn't sound _entirely_ correct to Reever, but to be fair he doesn't really take much notice of all the coffee he drinks); much as he loves not being in debt (a prospect with which he has already begun the sad divorce proceedings; one look at Komui's floor is enough to send chills down his spine) he loves being able to stay up for hours on end slavering over work without even the prospect of a few hours snatched sleep to break up the tedious (and sometimes dangerous) monotony of the average workday.

Wait, no.

Even as he contemplates the worrying depths to which Komui's indoctrination of workplace ethics seems to have gone (he _very specifically_ remembers vetoing subliminal messaging on account of _haven't they suffered enough_?) Reever is snapping to action, burying the most dangerous works left lying around under each desk (which are specially equipped with nigh-on indestructible safes for just this kind of contingency) and making sure that all nonessential staff are being evacuated to the far end of the building. It's tedious, time-consuming work that makes Reever's nerves scream – _hurry up_ , he keeps telling himself, _you need to be_ faster _–_

But there's only so much he can do, and they haven't had a proper emergency for a few months – enough time to grow complacent, with the worst thing to happen being some minor explosions and/or structural damage. Nothing that couldn't be sorted out by some fudged paperwork and that super-strength adhesive glue that Johnny had developed by accident last year.

Reever's locked up the patient's compound, but it's difficult to really get it secure – any movement on their part is going to attract attention, and at the moment, their proximity to the labs is an advantage. There's very little he wouldn't wager on the labs being basically bomb-proof, give or take a few toxic leaks from bad repair jobs. Sealing the door sounds like a good idea to him, but Komui had gone ballistic when Reever had suggested it – _But what if my darling Lenalee can't_ breathe _?_ he had fretted, until Reever had withdrawn the suggestion out of sheer desperation for some peace and quiet. Not before making all the counter-arguments he'd had available, of course – like how when there's _another_ poisonous-gas leak, no one had to announce over the loudspeaker to put on gas-masks.

…

…

" _The anachronisms –"_

"Are all safe," Komui says as he strides along his lines of robots, activating each with a sharp _snap_ of a button. Their eyes glow as they turn on in preparation for violence; Komui had made these Mark XVII's with some very specific goals in mind.

One of his earlier Komlin's – Mark VI, he thinks but he can't be sure – is wheeling along beside him, holding up a portable television screen that is directly plugged into the computer's mainframe. Audio only, of course; Komui sometimes wishes for the convenience f a half-held phone – was it _that_ difficult to acquire? Where did this mysterious guardian angel _live?_

" _You've hidden them in secure locations?"_

" _Yes_ ," Komui says, baring his teeth. It has always been a point of contention that Komui won't let a scrap of information go about the anachronisms, no matter _who's_ doing the asking. They'd even tried something on Lenalee that one time that no one ever spoke of again, mostly because it was so nightmare inducing that even Komui had trouble sleeping sometimes when he thought about the damage both he and his sister had done to those poor, poor young men who had been paid handsomely to kidnap a young girl from an unconventional mental instruction so as to be used as a pawn for political manoeuvring.

On second thought, maybe he _didn't_ get nightmares after something like that.

The anachronisms _are_ safe, as a matter of fact – hidden in various strategic points around his office, usually underneath the most tedious budget details and bad research proposals (not even the _good_ bad – Komui keeps those in a separate pile to laugh at later when he's feeling bad – but the ones that are so out-of-date that picking up on it isn't even hard).

...except for the one he'd given to Reever for testing.

Komui doesn't let the thrill of hysteria that curls around his gut show. Reever will handle it. If there's anyone Komui can trust in this place, it's Reever.

" _We may need to evacuate,"_ the voice says. " _Are you prepared for –"_

"Yes," Komui says, gritting his teeth and turning on his last precious Komlin. It probably isn't good practice to interrupt what is, for all intents and purposes, his boss – but hey, if they haven't fired him yet, he figures they'll be fairly forgiving for a breach of conduct during an incredibly stressful situation. The sirens are not helping. Komui knows that they're supposed to be indicating an emergency, but the best they're doing is giving him a headache. "Of course we are – we're prepared for pretty much every contingency under the sun, especially with regards to these –"

"Oh, _hello_."

Komui turns, pasting a smile and backing up a step so that his Komlin can swarm forward. There are almost twenty-seven of them, pointing their miniature laser-guns at the intruder.

He's tall – almost unfairly so, with ash-grey skin and a smile to rival the stars. His hair is dark and slicked back against his skull with what could _only_ have been done with absurd amount of industrial-strength hair-gel, and he's wearing a tailored coat and expensive shoes.

"Who are you," Komui says, making a few vague gestures behind his back towards the security cameras. He isn't sure who's supposed to be manning them in times of crisis – Reever is the delegator, in this sort of situation; Komui had just signed the papers and nodded – but he hopes they're paying attention.

"Oh, I'm just an old acquaintance, passing by," the man says, smile widening. He stretches his gloved fingers, reaching into his coat pocket for something. Around him, the Komlin bristle with guns.

"Now, now," the man says, holding his hands up in the universal 'don't shoot' sign. On the tip of his finger is a purple butterfly, the edges of the wings blurring in a way he isn't entirely sure has to do with Komui's prescription. "I'm not here for you, don't worry."

"I'm not worried," Komui says, very worried. He doesn't know how this man has gotten past _all_ his – if he does say so himself – rather extensive security measures, and he doesn't like the implications.

"Now, if you'd kindly turn over the – hmm, what are you calling them, now? Anachronisms?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Komui says.

"Of course you know what I'm talking about," the man says, and the butterfly launches delicately off the tip of his finger towards Komui. Three of the robots switch their sights onto it as he lazily flutters forward, landing on the barrel of one of the lasers.

"Now," the man says, and then his smile is deepening, widening, until it's stretching across most of his face. "Why don't you just _tell m_ e."

…

…

In the basement, clutched in Lenalee's arms, a packaged marked POST starts to vibrate.

...

…

 **A/N** : I have returned! Sorry about last week -_- the world decided to use my head for an ice-hockey puck, is what my life feels like atm. Posting a new chapter…wasn't my first priority.

Hope this doesn't feel too rushed! ALSO thank you so much to **Jazebeth** , **jy24** , **Alejandra674** , **Cleo2467** , **waterlit** and **FauN** for reviewing! They really made my week bearable, haha.

See you next week! (I _promise_ :P)

Mneme


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer** : I don't own -man, nor am I in possession of coherency. Any plot that happens is entirely incidental.

 **TRIGGOR WARNINGS AT THE END**

…

…

"I'm not crazy," twelve-year-old Lenalee says, balancing on top of the balcony railing.

Komui stands half-way out of the door, face blanched bone-white. His hand is half-reached out, fingers curled through the air like he's _only just_ holding himself back from lunging forward and grabbing his sister.

"No," he says, voice choked. He clears his throat and tries again: "No, Lenalee, of course you're not crazy."

Lenalee grins at him, twisting on her foot and turning the other direction. Komui sways forward, a small sound coming from the back of his throat.

"Don't be silly," she says, standing on the tips of her toes and doing a small arabesque. Komui briefly, thoroughly regrets all the ballet lessons he's ever taken Lenalee to. "You're just _saying_ that, big brother. You never believe me."

"I believe you," Komui says, and he's impressed at the way his voice isn't shaking. He feels ripped apart, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do in this situation – should he yell at her? Beg? "Lenalee, of course I believe you. How about you just – just come inside, and we can –"

Lenalee rolls her eyes, jumping up and landing on the railing with a small _thump_. Komui tells himself very firmly that _now is not the time to faint_. "I'm not going to fall."

"Of course not," Komui says, hoarse. "Why don't you come down from there and talk about that?"

Lenalee laughs at him. "I'm not going to _fall_ ," she repeats, mad with the certainty of it. "I can fly."

"No," Komui says, taking a cautious step out onto the balcony. He feels sick, sick, sick. "No, Lenalee, you can't. Please, _please_ come down."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Lenalee says. "You don't believe me. But I _can_ , big brother, I can _fly_ , why don't I just _show you_ –"

" _Lenalee_ –"

…

…

"We need to do _something_ ," Allen says, pacing.

"Do what? We don't even know what's going on," Lenalee says, but her presence at the door anxiously shifting her weight around from one ankle to the other belays her otherwise indifferent attitude. "We should just sit it out and wait."

"Wait for what?" Allen says, turning on them. "This isn't a normal alarm. There's something happening, and it has something to do with us."

"And how do you know _that_ , beansprout?" Kanda drawls, unimpressed.

"Don't call me that," Allen snaps, increasing the speed of his paces until he's basically jogging around the room to get rid of his frustrated energy. "And I don't know. But there's _something_ here, I can – I can _feel_ it –"

"Oh, bravo, _beansprout_ ," Kanda says. "You're _psychic_."

"Don't make me hurt you," Allen says, spinning around and marching towards Kanda. Lavi intercepts him before things can get ugly, though he doesn't do it without a look of genuine regret on his face.

"Now, now," he says. "From the sound of these alarms, we don't have access to normal amounts of medical attention. If Kanda beats you up –"

"As if Kanda would beat me up! Lavi, you bastard!"

" _If Kanda beats you up_ ," Lavi says, as though Allen hasn't just interrupted him. "And you retaliate, then both of you might actually bleed out before we could tell anyone."

"Not me," Kanda grunts.

Lavi waves a dismissive hand, using his free one to push Allen back towards the couch and sit him down. "Yeah, yeah," he says. "You're _indestructible_ , we get it."

"No," Kanda says, voice usually patient. "I can't bleed."

Allen glances at him. "You _what_?"

"I can't bleed," Kanda repeats, like that's a totally normal and logical reaction to everything.

"…no," Allen says, slow and careful. "I've seen you bleeding."

"No you haven't," Kanda says.

"Yes I…!" Allen shakes his head. "Look, is that a medical condition, or…?"

"I just don't bleed," Kanda says.

Lavi laughs. "Ignore him," he says, patting Allen on the head. Allen ducks out from the hand, scowling up at Lavi. "That's why he's here. At least, according to his records."

"Che," Kanda spits.

"Records?"

Lavi leans back, grinning ear to ear. There's something wild about the way the air crackles, the way sirens blare in the distance with a steady kind of beat. "Oh, you know," he says. "The stuff they don't actually put online. There's a _filing system_. Well, sort of."

"Yeah," Allen says, momentarily side-tracked. His fingers curls in reaction to the ghost-pain of the brief but painful period he had spent as a temporary assistant to Komui. _A filing system. Sort of_. It was enough to make him want to kill someone, it really was. "Yeah, I know."

"Oh, good," Lavi says, looking pleased. If he's actually had to dig through Komui's sorry excuse for a _filing system_ , Allen doesn't know what he's smiling about. "Then you know that they keep fairly comprehensive and invasive records about all of us at the back."

Allen hesitates, weighing up whether or not he should lie about skipping out on some of those – ahem, _very important_ documents in favour of discussing with Neah why arson was generally a bad idea. "Yes," he finally says.

Lavi rolls his single eye, but doesn't comment on it. "Well, they've got a _fat_ one on Yuu."

"Like you said, _rabbit_ ," Kanda says. "There's no access to medical at the moment. You sure you want to provoke me?"

Lavi grimaces. "Point taken," he says, and then immediately disregards it. "So Yuu's file was mostly blacked out – Komui did that, I think, but I'm not too sure – but from what I figured out, he –"

"I will kill you," Kanda says, giving up on his brief pretence of civility. Allen is almost impressed he hadn't gone straight to outright death-threats from the beginning.

"He doesn't think he can die," Lavi says, dancing back from Kanda's corresponding strike. "It's terribly inconvenient, especially the way he tried to prove it. More than once."

"You _tried to kill yourself_ ," Allen says, choking.

"Of course not," Kanda says, bland even as he takes swipes at Lavi's dodging form. "I can't die."

…

…

Lenalee wasn't listening to the others.

It wasn't anything she didn't know, in any case – just the usual nonsense about Kanda insisting he was immortal, and Lavi insisting that such a thing wasn't possible. _I can't bleed_ was a mantra that cycled through almost all of Lenalee's childhood from her first visit here, and she can't imagine looking at Kanda without seeing the words circling across his skin. He'd frightened her terribly the first few times he'd insisted on a demonstration – never to her, of course ( _I believe you I believe you no one ever believed ME but I believe YOU_ ) – but to the scientists, to the orderlies, so the –

But that isn't important, not now. It's never been really _important_ in the sense of the word; it always just _was_. Lenalee doesn't care about a debate that never had any real influence to begin within; she cares about the way the sirens are burning through her eardrums, the way the package in her hands seems to be vibrating against her skin.

It's a debate on whether or not to open it.

On one hand…the safest (and most logical) thing to do with _anything_ that Reever was going to give to Johnny for _testing_ is to go put it in a corner and hide somewhere with lots of hazmat suits and protective goggles. Maybe bullet-proof glass, but she's not a miracle-worker, and there are only so many inter-connecting rooms on this side of the labs (they'd once lost Lavi. It had taken them a week to find him again. After that, things had been sectioned off "for their own safety").

On the other –

Lenalee _really wants to know_ what's in the postal package. She's checked it over a dozen times (not that any of the _boys_ has cared enough to actually notice, aside from their useless posturing and general lack of urgency) but there isn't even a RETURN TO SENDER on the thing, so she doesn't know where the package is from or what it could possible contain that would interest someone like her brother, who barely leaves his own office to come down and see her.

It's an odd twist from their previous dynamic; in the beginning, when things had been…different, he had slept downstairs in the labs. They'd made a sort of game of it, two siblings sleeping against a single pane of glass. It had been comforting, looking at the back of his head and thinking, _He's here, he's here, he's here. I'm not alone_.

Kanda had been there before that, before her brother had managed to sneak in somehow and hire himself (she doesn't believe that he was actually _hired_ by someone; he'd been working odd-jobs for as long as she can remember, with an unemployable degree in something she can't even pronounce). Kanda had been an almost constant, comforting presence – but he had never been her brother.

For one thing, he'd believed her when she said that she could fly.

The package vibrated underneath her sweaty palms like a heartbeat, in tune with the wail of the sirens and the distant but constant panicking of the scientists outside. _Breathe_ , she tells herself, fingers fumbling across the opening of the package. A tear, that's all she needs, just rip and _pull_ –

The sirens cut out.

Along with the lights.

…

…

There's a _snap_.

Hazard lights kick in, red bathing the world in deep shadow and blood.

Lenalee backs away from the door, feeling something ice over in her gut. The package in her hands is as hot as a poker, and she would drop it if only her fingers would uncurl. The half-glass half-metal door leading directly into the labs starts to spit and hiss in livewire, a mass of black _things_ perching on the other side and eating away at the matter.

"What the _hell_ ," Lavi says, when Lenalee backs into him. She twists to glance at him, but almost immediately turns her attention back to the way the door is groaning, as if under an immense sort of pressure or weight.

There's a sort of sinister air to everything, like a sharp poke to the side of the brain. Lenalee can _feel_ the weight of everything, is aware of how bare her ankles are, how long her hair is. Something is twisting, twisting, twisting inside her that wants to get out, but it can't, because her skin is too thick and her bones are _too heavy_ –

Allen stands by her other side. Lenalee can barely see his expression, everything is so deep in shadow, but she doesn't like the way it's set.

"Shit," Kanda says, getting to his feet, just as the door dissolves under the weight of a thousand butterflies.

A figure emerges from beneath the swarm, a warm laugh cutting through the tension and bleeding it dry. Lenalee's skin itches with the need to break something.

"Well, now isn't _this_ interesting."

"Noah," Kanda says, and then he's flinging a knife – where had he gotten a _knife_? They'd _banned_ knives since that last debacle with the blue chicken – at the figure.

Who proceeds to catch it.

Kanda growls through his teeth, settling back on his heels and whipping his shinai around in an absurd sort of preparation. The figure laughs again, and Lenalee's hands are so hot she can feel her skin melting.

"Kanda Yuu," the man says, and he almost sounds fond. "What an unexpected surprise."

"Get out of here," Kanda snarls, face contorted into something wild and feral in the harshness of the red lighting.

"Who are you?" Allen says, voice calm and pleasant. "What do you want?"

"Oh, _Allen_ ," the man says, and Lenalee can't help but reel back at the sheer amount of _amusement_ and _warmth_ that tinges his voice. It's a bleak contrast to the way Allen seems to be totally blank. "It's been _so long_."

"I've never met you before in my life," Allen says. There's something off-kilter about him, though, like when he's listening to the voice in his head he thinks none of them notice.

"Oh, I think you have," the man says, coming forward, and black butterflies circle around him like dark backlight. His smile glints with white knives. "Though I suppose it _had_ been a long time, for you – tell me, how is the Fourteenth?"

…

…

 **WARNING** : the first scene is essentially Komui trying to talk Lenalee out of (what he thinks) is suicide, and there are brief mentions of Kanda with self-harm.

 **A/N** : HELLO once again, to my lovely wonderful readers who are so kind and generous. Thanks so much to **Jazebeth** , **jy24** , **Alejandra674** , **waterlit** , **melovecats** and **Guest** , you're all amazing and I love you lots.

Sorry it's kind of late, but classes are really kicking into overdrive (bwahaha I amuse myself) and things are Not Fun. This was kind of fun to write, though :P

See you next week!

Mneme


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D . Gray-man

Yo! Sorry for the late chapter, haha – RL has been a real shitshow lately. Hope you enjoy this week's instalment of Mneme's Aversion to Resolving Cliffhangers (Part XV).

…

…

Cross scowls down into his empty glass, feeling the ugly buzz of tipsiness slowly begin to fade into the background. Soberness isn't something he particularly enjoys nor seeks out, but he seems to have developed an annoying habit of it since he'd been _press ganged_ into taking on the undergrown beanpole.

Said beanpole is sitting next to him, quietly glowering at everything and anything that gets within a ten-metre radius. Cross is already regretting this – which is something of a minor miracle, considering that he's made a personal motto of hedonism. As he studies the bar that they're both currently residing, he debates the pros and cons of getting more wine – another unpleasant occurrence. _Thinking_. Cross has spent the vast majority of his remembered life thinking as little as possible about the possible consequences for his actions, and starting late in the game isn't an incredibly pleasant experience.

"Why are we here?" the brat says, arms crossed sullenly over his skinny chest. The hell, twelve-year olds were supposed to be cute, weren't they? What was wrong with this one?

"Because I'm in a bad mood," Cross says, finally coming to the consensus that he can't survive the next hour sober. He hates kids. Shoving the glass forward to the bartender – a crusty old man without any teeth – Cross leans back and props his leather boots up onto the table. His spine protests, but he's used to his body being noncompliant, so he just ignores it.

Things had gone to _shit_.

He taps a finger against the edge of the table and tries to count the number of people that he actually knows. He's been frequenting this bar on and off for the past decade, and it's difficult to keep track of who he owes what to after such a long time. This sort of permanency itches like an allergic reaction under his skin, but Cross has found it more than useful to have cultivated a small but diverse group of contacts who enjoy taking time off their boats to converge at a single place. For all that it is uncomfortable having people know his face well enough to want to hit it, Cross finds better information here than anywhere outside of Rome. And he's decided that he's _never_ going back to Rome.

"You've got a kid now, huh?"

Cross leans back, tilting his chair at an impossible angle and anchoring himself with his ankles to get a better look at whoever's interrupting his well-deserved sulk. Judgement weighs heavily against his hip, and ever-present reminder of his lack of luck.

Anita smiles down at him, genuine warmth lighting up her face in a way that makes Cross want to bash his head into the wall. Anita's too good for him.

"Where's your bodyguard?" he says, sitting himself up and twisting around so that he's straddling the chair backwards. He's almost proud of the way he's moving, especially considering the set of cracked ribs and sprained wrist that he'd acquired during his last…altercation…with his creditors.

"Cross Marian," Anita says, arching her eyebrow. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I'm here for the cheap booze," Cross says, stretching out his mouth into a lazy grin. "And to foist off my idiot apprentice onto someone with an actual moral compass."

" _Excuse me_?" the brat says, eyes lighting up with a kind of muted indignation. Cross is sure the moron is inwardly debating if getting away from Cross is worth the headache of figuring out his next mark – oh, sorry, he means _guardian_.

"I'm joking," Cross says, patting him down hard on the head in a way that he can just blame on the alcohol later. The brat attributes a surprising amount of Cross's bad habits to alcohol, actually. It's useful, if disturbing as hell. "No one else would want you, brat."

The brat scowls up at him.

They're both interrupted by Anita's laugh, which – well. Cross can't really blame the brat for getting distracted. Anita is a lovely woman, in possession of a lovely laugh.

"You're cute," Anita tells him, reaching down to ruffle the brat's hair. The brat ducks out from underneath her hand, scowling all the while. Ungrateful kid. "What are you doing with this deadbeat?"

"I don't have a choice," the brat says, hunching down further. Cross whacks him on the arm. Seriously, talk about _ungrateful_.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Anita says, and she sounds so calm about it. Sincere and shit. Damn, if only Cross could pull off that level of sincerity. He'd never have to pay a damn bill ever again. "I'm Anita. Anita […]. What's your name?"

"Neah Walker," the brat replies, eyes unfocused. "it's lovely meeting you again, Anita."

Cross thumps him. Hard.

The brat shakes his head and pulls out his smile – the best one he has, no bullshitting around. Cross feels something cold wiggle its way around into his stomach.

"Allen Walker," he says, holding out his head and blinking slowly. Everything about him is calm and practiced, though it does lack that certain sense of sincerity that Anita has managed to master. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Anita."

Anita smiles back, charmed despite herself. Cross makes a small hand gesture next to his neck, indicating that she shouldn't act too freaked out or anything. Not that he didn't trust Anita's judgement, just that – she wouldn't be the first person who the brat had introduced himself to as. And she wouldn't be the first one to act strangely. "And you as well, Allen."

"how do you know my Master?" he says, simpering smiles and sweet-baked teeth. "You're far too pretty to be slumming it with –

"Watch your mouth, boy," Cross says, eye twitching. "You don't get to talk like that around here, you got it?"

"I'll talk however I want," the brat says. "I paid off the loan sharks."

"Oh, you've already finished up with them?" Cross says, in a much better mood. He takes his recently-filled glass back up and takes a long swig, slamming it down onto the table and shoving it back in the direction of the bartender. "Another!"

The brat's entire being just _crumples_. "Please," he says, sounding pathetically desperate. "No more."

"Cross," Anita says, sighing.

Cross grins at her, spirits heartily lifted. "I'll behave," he lies, leaning forward on the back of the chair. "So, tell me, how's business been –"

The door opens.

Cross doesn't stop smiling. He reaches down and palms Judgement, still talking.

"I've heard you had quite the upstart company encroaching onto your territory a few months back."

Anita laughs, completely at ease. She starts to respond, but Cross isn't listening – not really. He wonders if she notices his inattention, but he doesn't think so. He's always prided himself on being a fairly decent actor.

 _Keep breathing_ , Cross thinks. _Keep smiling_.

"Hello, General."

 _Smile while the world burns down_ , Cross thinks, looking up at the grey-skinned man who has just addressed him. _It's easy_. Beside him, the brat makes a small noise of – what? Recognition. Rage swells, and he has to temper it. A miscalculation will be fatal.

His smile widens. Those were always the best odds.

"Tyki Mikk," he says, turning around. "What a _wonderful_ surprise."

…

…

"I suppose it had been a long time, for you – tell me, how is the Fourteenth?"

Allen's head is going to explode.

 _RUN_ , Neah is shouting – no, he's _screaming_. _RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN –_

 _I'm not running_ , Allen thinks. _I'm not running._

Besides, it's not like there was anywhere for him to go.

 _FINE_ , Neah thinks, and then everything goes black.

…

…

"Tyki MIkk," Allen says, but it's not Allen's voice.

Lenalee's head snaps around to stare at him, heart clogging up her throat. She's never heard Allen sound so – so –

"Leave."

The man – Tyki Mikk – just smiles. It's a fairly attractive smile, on a purely aesthetic sense – Lenalee feels a chill creep down her spine as she surveys it, noting the way it appears skin to a doctor observing a dead body (she's had _way_ too much first-hand experience with dead bodies during her time here).

"Ah, Fourteenth," he says, moving forward. Allen glares at him, holding his ground in an impressive show of iron will that Lenalee isn't sure she could muster, had she been in his place. Thinking is difficult, what with the deafening silence and the tiny voice at the back of her mind that's telling her how _none of this is a good idea_. She's resigned herself to a life of semi-insanity (no matter what she tells her brother, she's found, he'll never believe her), but she'd always hoped to be able to _fake_ it well enough that she'd be released. _Fool everyone_ , had been her motto, until she'd realised that "everyone" had included the very demons she needed to kill in order to protect her brother.

"Leave," Allen says, and _he's_ smiling, too. Lenalee just wants everyone to stop smiling. It's freaking her out.

"Now, _cousin_ ," Tyki Mikk purrs. "You know I can't do that. Not until I've found those anachronisms that the Church is so intent on hiding away…"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Allen says. "And even if we _did_ have those – whatever you called them – you wouldn't be able to find them. No one here is going to tell you anything."

"Oh, no," Tyki Mikk says, sighing. "I've already figured that out, don't worry. That lovely director – I keep forgetting his name." He points at Lenalee, who freezes. "You. Your brother. I ran into him on the way here. Wouldn't spill a single word."

Everything. Stops.

…

…

On Komui Lee's seventeenth birthday, he finds his little sister ankle-deep in a pool of blood. She's got a knife in one hand but that hadn't been her instruments of murder – rather, Lenalee is clutching one of their mother's stiletto shoes tight enough to wrinkle the bloodstained silk.

" _Lenalee_!" Komui hisses, lunging forward – only to stop half-way across the distance when he sees the face of the man that she has just killed.

It's absurd, actually, to think that such a small girl could kill such a large man. The logistics of it almost boggle belief, and so Komui doesn't really process it correctly until he's stuck Lenalee underneath the shower to wash away the evidence. He tells her not to come out of their shared room until he comes back, and then he goes back towards the alley-way to destroy the evidence.

During the time it took Komui to find his little sister and bring her home, not once did he consider calling the police. He mulls over his apathy towards such a gruesome murder – and it is gruesome; as soon as Lenalee was out of hearing-range, Komui threw up – as he drags along the body, sweat pouring down his skinny frame. There's only so much he can do to cover the blood, and Lenalee's done a wonderful job of opening up as many gauges into the skin as possible. There's a trail. There's going to be an investigation.

Komui isn't going to let his sister get caught.

When he gets back home, it's still dark out. He goes into his bathroom and finds Lenalee still underneath the shower; she's turned off the water pressure, but not enough, and every half-second or so liquid seeps out from the drain and thumps against the tiles. She's pressed her small body as far into the corner as it will go, knees tucked underneath her chin and hands clutching at her elbows.

Komui hesitates at the doorway, stomach unsettled enough that even the thought of some restorative soup makes his stomach turn queasy.

"Do you hate me, now?"

Komui closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, and then rushes forward to sweep his little sister up into the biggest, tightest hug he can manage. Lenalee shakes in his arms, and she's so small, _so small_. He's already disposed of the murder weapon, washed the knife in bleach and burned both his mother's shoes. He's taken care of the body. (He never wants to do that again).

"I don't hate you," he whispers into her wet scalp. "No, Lenalee, of course I don't hate you."

"I'm a monster," Lenalee says, and starts to cry. "I can see the monsters, so I must be a monster, too."

"There are no such things as monsters," Komui recites by rote, the words so engrained into his being that he barely has to think before saying them. That's always what he's insisted to Lenalee's stories about shadowy things that creep through the night – _there are no such things as monsters, there are no such things as monsters_.

"Then what am I?" Lenalee says. She doesn't look at him.

"You're Lenalee," Komui says, stroking fingers through her wet hair. "You're not a monster. There are no such things as monsters."

…

…

 **A/N** : I'M ALIVE! Ta-da! Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter: **jy24** , **waterlit** and **melovecats**! It's always so awesome to know that people are liking what I'm writing :)

ANYWAY, I'll see you next week! (…hopefully o_o)

Mneme


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer** : I don't own -man, though my update schedule is probably just as bad.

…

…

Allen wakes up to screaming.

"I _swear_ , Lavi, if you _KEEP FUSSING –"_

"I'm not fussing! I am making sure that you haven't further injured yourself in a _very manly_ way!"

"Manly? _Manly_? I'll _SHOW_ you manly when I –"

Allen sits up and opens his eyes, trying to think past the headache that rings behind his eyes, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He's been lying on a stiff pale couch, liberally stained with something that looks too much like blood to be a coincidence. The walls and roof are bleached an uncomfortable white, with the floor being made of grey concrete. There is no discernible door. Allen doesn't recognise this space, but that doesn't particularly surprise him – during his hellish time as an intern, more than once he'd heard… _stories_ about people who had just disappeared while running a seemingly innocuous errand. _The building swallowed them up_ had been an increasingly frightening expression that had left Allen terrified to even turn a well-known corner. It hadn't helped that every iteration had been said in the same, blank, dead voice. _The building swallowed them up_.

 _Did the building swallow us up?_ Allen asks Neah, stretching out his shoulders. He waits for a few seconds, frowning when he doesn't hear even the smallest amount of thought echo back. Being alone in his own head is a strangely frightening concept, almost as bad as being swallowed by a sentient building that has (at least, as far as Allen can figure) been used as a location for the most ethically skewed experimentations possible to human beings. Allen's thoughts bounce around on the inside of his skull like ping-pong balls, rattling around his brain. It's a fairly unpleasant experience.

Lavi and Lenalee are fighting on the couch opposite to the one that Allen is sitting on. Lenalee is kicking Lavi as he curls in a fetal position on the ground.

"I" – she says, punctuating each word with a kick – "Am not – _weak_ –"

Kanda watches from the side, wide smirk held firmly in place. He's sitting up against the wall, arms crossed over his knees, hair in absolute disarray. It's the most ruffled that Allen's ever seen him. His customary shinai isn't anywhere to be seen, but there is a line of knives laid out in front of him, blades gleaming in the harshness of the fluorescent lighting.

"Oy," Kanda says, eyes tracking Allen's sudden movement. "The beansprout's finally awake."

Lenalee stops kicking Lavi, who uses the opportunity to scuttle away on all fours and disappear behind Allen's couch.

"Allen!" Lenalee says, sounding thrilled. Allen tries not to be discomforted by her sudden change of mood, and mostly fails at this. "We were getting worried."

Allen privately thinks that Lenalee was the only one who was actually worried, but neither Kanda nor Lavi – who is still hiding behind Allen, and hasn't even popped up to make _one_ sarcastic comment – seem to want to risk disagreeing with her. He tries to smile, but it mostly comes out as a pained grimace as his entire _body_ gives a ubiquitous throb. He feels like one giant bruise.

"What happened?" he says, hand coming up automatically to press against his temple.

Kanda and Lenalee exchange a quick glance. Allen doesn't like that look _at all_.

"How much do you remember?" Lenalee says in the tentative voice of one asking the information retention rate of an invalid. Allen gives her a thin-lipped smile that declares that he is not fooled in the slightest – he's used this trick more than a few times to lie his way out of sticky situations. _How much do you remember?_ Is basically a gateway for previously withheld information, combined with a fun bullet-point synopsis of what to gloss over. The moment he starts talking, he loses any control he might have possessed.

"How about you just give me the abridged version," he says, making sure to give his voice a slight tremble at the end. _Look weak_ , he urges himself, stomach shifting uneasily. _They can't know what's going on, they'll only –_

Only what? Freak out? Allen tries to think about the encounter with that strange man, but his mind shies away from it, like pressing down on a particularly nasty bruise. These are his friends. He can trust these people. _Neah_ is the suspicious one, not him.

And now Neah isn't talking back.

Lenalee gives a nervous laugh. She looks tired. Really, really tired – there are dark circles the size of baseballs hanging under her eyes, and her arms are heavily bandaged from palm to forearm, disappearing underneath the loose cut of her shirt.

Allen starts to get up, legs wobbling, and then he collapses forward onto the cold concrete of the floor with a totally manly _yelp_.

"We should just knock him out again," Kanda says from where he's sitting, while Lenalee actually rushes forward to do the _helpful_ thing and basically pick him off the ground with her freakish upper-body strength. "He's just going to hurt himself."

Allen finds himself simpering, _"Aww, you_ do _care_ ", even though his head is threatening to split itself apart. Apparently, this aspect of his personality is now a reflex, something which he is fully intent on blaming Cross for. Spending what accounts for his formative years under the thumb of a compulsive liar/womaniser/gambler has clearly broken down whatever sort of civility Allen had once possessed. He tries not to mourn it.

"Yeah, Yuu," Lavi says, popping up from behind the couch and almost giving Allen a _heart attack_. "You're a total softy underneath all that – other stuff."

Lenalee and Kanda both swing their heads around to glare at him. Lavi cowers underneath the combined weight of their frankly terrifying eyes, and Allen inches out of the way so that he isn't between them and him. Lenalee absently pats his shoulder as she leans forward, so that she's staring a half-inch away from Lavi's suddenly very pale face.

"Boo," she says.

Lavi shrieks, jumping back and clutching at his heart with wide eyes.

"Okay!" he says, gasping. "Okay, I'm _sorry_ , I wasn't trying to _offend_ your delicate sensibilities."

Lenalee crosses her bandaged arms across her chest, looking as unimpressed as Allen has ever seen her. Then she shakes her head and sighs, sitting down next to Allen – who continues with his discrete inching.

"I was just trying to help," Lavi says, sulkily.

"I know," Lenalee says, leaning up against the back of the couch and dragging her fingers along the sides. "I know that you're just trying to help, Lavi, I just…"

"Her brother's probably dead, Lavi. I don't think all this _fussing_ is being appreciated," Kanda says.

Allen snaps his head up. "What?" he says.

"Oh, don't you remember that, either?" Kanda sneers.

"You want to go?" Allen snarls, jerking forward.

Lenalee grabs his shoulder and stops him cold. "Kanda," she says, sweet as anything. "Please refrain from commenting any further."

"Whatever," Kanda says, going back to staring at his shiny, shiny knives.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Lenalee says, turning her full attention back onto Allen.

"Yeah," Lavi pipes up, because he has the survival instincts of a lemming. "Was it before or after you went crazy?"

"Crazy?" Allen says. He has a bad feeling about this.

"Lavi, shut up," Lenalee says. "You're making this more confusing."

"That's not difficult," Allen grumbles.

Kanda gives a put-out sigh. "We met the Fourteenth, beansprout," he says, like that's supposed to mean something truly significant.

Allen stares at him blankly. "The who?"

"The _wh –_ oh, right." Kanda gives him an ugly smirk, completely ignoring the warning sound that comes from the back of Lenalee's throat. "I forgot about your little bout of selective amnesia. Neah, Walker. We met Neah."

Allen's spine chills.

"It was _very_ educational _._ "

…

…

Neah isn't a _massive_ fan of surprises.

No, that's a lie. Neah _loves_ surprises, so long as he knows every single thing that's going to happen and can make backup plans for when things explode. There had been a time when that hadn't been absolutely necessary, but if Neah's learned _anything_ during his years in Allen Walker's body – and Neah likes to think himself as someone who continuously looks for opportunities to learn – it's that there are always explosions. No matter how mundane (basketball game, train ride, tea party) the kid seems to attract fire like some kind of twisted danger magnet. It'd be worrying, if it wasn't also hilarious.

"The Fourteenth," Tyki Mikk says, like that title still means something. Neah has transcended from his former shell of the Fourteenth, the last in a long line of rejections. He's settled himself quiet firmly into Allen Walker's mind, into Allen Walker's life. Things have changed. The Millennium Earl is dead. There is no one else fit to take his place.

"Joyd," Neah says, because he knows it'll piss the Noah off.

Predictably, Tyki Mikk's nose flares. Neah can't stop smirking, because he's been conditioned to be an asshole from a very young age.

"It's been _too_ long, cousin," he says, because why not. "Tell me, how has this… _life_ been treating you?"

"You're going to scream when I kill you," Tyki Mikk says, smile firmly set in place. There's a sharp whistling sound, and he ducks around to catch a gleaming knife between two of his fingers. He whirls back to face them, grin far more wolfish than before. "Now, now. You must have _known_ that wouldn't have worked, Kanda Yuu."

Kanda bares his teeth.

"No one here is going to tell you anything," Neah says, breaking into the conversation before things get uglier than they already are. In the far back of his mind, Allen stirs – Neah gently smothers him. No need for his kind host to bear witness to this unfortunate hanger-on from the past.

"Oh, no," Tyki Mikk says, sighing. Dramatic little runt. "I've already figured that out, don't worry. That lovely director – I keep forgetting his name." he points lazily at Lenalee, whose shoulders stiffen. "That one. You. Your brother. I ran into him on the way here. Wouldn't budge."

Lenalee goes as still as a block of ice.

Bad, bad. Neah's spent too much time around these brats not to realise that Bad, Bad Things happen when the people they love get hurt. This is a terrible idea, he would have thought that even someone as thick-headed as Tyki Mikk would have learned, but _no_. He would have blamed the Noah genes – Neah usually blames the Noah genes, considering that they're the root cause of 98% of all mental problems that occur within the Millennium Earl's little club – but he met Tyki Mikk before he'd been awoken. That sort of crazy was all him.

Neah makes a subtle check of the room, giving a small internal sigh when he sees that the other two exorcists have been similarly affected. The Bookman's brat uncrosses his arms, warming up his wrists. The Second Exorcist looks lethal.

"My brother," Lenalee says, and – what is she holding? Neah gives an uneasy start when he realises that she's been holding something this whole time, unnoticed by him. A package. When had she gotten that? It's moving in her arms as she squeezes it closer to her chest. The smell of burning plastic begins to waft through the air, though no one seems overly concerned about that. "What did you do to him?"

She's being remarkably calm, all things considered. How…worrying.

Tyki Mikk notices neither the uncharacteristic restraint nor the reek of burning plastic. Of course he doesn't; that brat has always been too introverted to properly care about the fine details. If Neah were still working on their side, he would smack that kid.

"Oh, Komui Lee," he says, the name thrown out carelessly. Lenalee's fingers claw at the shiny wrapping of the package, the far tips beginning to bubble and singe. "That _was_ his name, wasn't it? How careless of me. Yes, we had quite a… _pleasant_ , chat. So enlightening. I've always been fascinated to know how much _pain_ the human body can –"

Lenalee _screams_.

…

…

"Well?" Allen demands when they pause. "What happens next?"

"That's when it gets…weird," Lenalee says.

"What, weirder than anything else we've had happen to us?" Allen says. "We fight demons in human skin, Lenalee. I don't think there's really a limit to it."

"Yeah, but at least the demons are"– Lenalee waves her hand, a bit uncomfortably – "Sort of normal? I'm used to demons. I'm not used to…"

"Random bursts of light that sear off most of the skin on your arm?" Lavi says, helpfully, and then ducks away before Lenalee can punch him.

"You _what_?" Allen says.

"Well…"

…

…

Lenalee _screams_.

Neah jumps back across the couch, neatly dodging the miniature globs of burning plastic that burst out from between Lenalee's arms. Something white and clear – _no, no, no_ – resonates around the room in a kind of pitched harmony that burns Neah's-Allen's-Neah's ears. _No, no, no_. This isn't how it's supposed to be, it's all gone, destroyed, willed away from existence by the strength of a single wish –

Something glares up between Lenalee's fingers like a ball of metallic white feathers. It slices through the toughened skin of her palm and dripping blood down her wrists and elbows and it's _everywhere_ , everywhere, everywhere.

 _No_ , Neah thinks, and then closes Allen's eyes and shrinks.

…

…

"And that set off the fire alarm –"

"We still have a _fire alarm_? I thought that it'd been disabled after that thing with the toothpaste –"

"And we got dunked with like an ocean of water –"

"Don't exaggerate, Lavi. Though I must admit, the sprinklers certainly _did_ flood the place."

"And then Kanda grabbed Lenalee and I grabbed you and we bolted out the emergency exit –

" _Since when have we had an emergency exit_?"

"And now we're sitting around in the panic room, waiting for the air to run out. Or for the survivors to let us out. Either or."

" _WHAT_?"

…

…

 **A/N** : …ta-da? (ducks thrown fruit) I swear I'm (gets nailed with a rotten tomato) goddamn wait no (concussed with squash) x_x

Thanks so, so much to: **jy24** , **melovecats** , **Jinx** , **Jazebeth** , **waterlit** , **Shinsoria** and **Dracon** **Asahara** for reviewing! Feedback really means the world to me.

New update schedule on my profile! (if you're still interested, :P)

See you next chapter :P

Mneme


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man!

…  
…

Alma Karma is tired.

They lie underneath the park bench and stare at the sun as it slices through the wooden bored, positioning their face so that it doesn't blind them. People give Alma strange looks as they walk by, but most of the time they don't even notice a skinny figure lying half-hidden in the grass. It's an old bench, anyhow, and kind of gross to look at. It's a rare occurrence that someone actually tries to sit down, and even then, Alma can scare them off with a well-timed "Hey!"

It's a beautiful day, as far as summer goes. There's a breeze, but it's too far up to really bother Alma. The sun is high, but broken up by the park trees, so nothing really _burns_. Alma has unfortunately pale skin, so burning is big issue. They'd scoured hundreds of park benches, across hundreds of parks, to find this perfect one right here. It's a nice place to think – much as Alma dislikes thinking.

It hasn't come all at once, the realisation that something was wrong. A stray through here – _intrusive thoughts_ , their first therapist had told them – a flash of rage there. And Alma was _angry_. It had taken them so long to realise it, but they were. Rage hummed in their veins, thick as congealed blood and heavy as bone. Alma Karma couldn't exist without being angry, not anymore.

Alma has it easy, they guess. They don't really know if anyone else survived after what Alma – after. They think Kanda did. They hope Kanda did.

Someone tries to sit down. Alma waits until the last possible second, before kicking up their knee into the wood and shouting "Hey! I'm trying to _sleep_ , here!"

The man jerks back to his feet, eyes wide and face pale. He glances down between the boards to see Alma's glaring face, and then abruptly decides that he _wasn't_ that tired, after all. Alma watches as he hurries away down the park path, a sicked grin stretching across their face. They can't help but wonder if messing with people was always a part of who they are, or if that aspect of their personality has just gotten worse since –

God _damn_ – and Alma thinks this with no little sense of irony – that's twice today. They're usually so _good_ at repression, too.

Ah, well. If they're going to wallow in the past, they may as well do it properly. It's a rare day that Alma allows themselves to think about Kanda, but now they picture his face, his long, long hair. Alma is human enough to admit to a little bit of hair envy. It was just so _long_ , and _pretty_ , and –

Alma blinks, hard. This is why they don't like thinking about the past. Nothing productive came of it.

A quick glance at their watch shows that it's almost time to leave. They allocate three hours every Wednesday to sleeping under the bench in the sun, but any longer and the sun's going to move away and Alma's going to end up freezing. The bench is located underneath one of the few thick groves of trees that line the park, which spreads out in a kind of splodgy circle from the centre point. It's in the middle of the city, but the high fences and strategically planted trees make it almost deadly silent inside, save for the infection of people.

With a small groan, they roll out from underneath the bench and stand up, dusting themselves off. Small clumps of dirt and grass fall to the ground as they shake at their jacket. Alma grabs their bag from where they've stashed it and starts walking out of the park. _Meditate_ , their third therapist had suggested. _It'll help with your, well. Temper problems_.

The fifth one had suggested yoga. That had been the point where Alma had just given up on conventional psychologist. Fortunately, they'd never been stupid enough to admit to anything untoward, so drugs had never been too big a threat. Alma's too smart to ever let something like that happen ever again.

They walk down the path towards the exit, feeling their shoulders begin to tense with every step. It's so easy, just existing without all the noise. One of the worst things to get used to have been people – the way they're _everywhere_ , doing _everything_ , bustling around in a single mass that presses against Alma's skin like smog. _Breathe through it_ , their final therapist had said _, Take in deep breaths and focus on something else_.

Alma had tried, in a fit of obscene desperation, to tell her: _No, that's not what happens. It's unnatural, to see so many people in the same place._ They'd managed to stop themselves from admitting _, Sometimes I just everything to not exist_ , but it had been a close call. Alma's seen what happens to the kids who admit to stuff like that.

"Yeah, that kid, over there."

Alma freezes, glancing to their right. The guy they had freaked out earlier is standing on the other side of the fountain, arms crossed. Beside him are two security guards.

"Well," Alma says, taking a small step back. "It was bound to happen, sooner or later."

Then they bolt.

"HEY! COME BACK HERE!"

Alma gives a private grin as they dodge past a group of startled children as they're feeding the ducks, pounding across the bridge and towards the fence. They can't afford to be arrested again.

They give it a run up, thighs bunching as they prepare to jump. The security guards are closing in behind them, but Alma's fast. With a small shout of triumph, they leap up and grab onto one of the higher tree branches, propelling themselves forward above the pointed edge of the fence. They tuck their head in and land in a roll, the bare asphalt scraping into the skin of their arms. Alma completes the roll and jumps back to their feet, turning around to laugh at the tall wall. They almost wish they could scramble up to get a better look at the security guards. Their faces must be _priceless_.

With a grin, Alma turns away. They hope Kanda is alright. They hope that they exist, here, in this world. A wish like that is almost worth being alive.

…

…

"We're going to _die_."

"Shut up, Lavi, I'm trying to think."

Lavi glares at them from where he's perched atop the couch backing, arms wrapped around his skinny legs as he tries to balance enough not to fall off.

"It's just water," Lenalee says, rolling her eyes. Despite her calm demeanour, Allen notices that she hasn't stopped moving from one end of the room to another, scrupulously attempting to find an exit without appearing to panic.

Three hours ago, it had become apparent that suffocation was _not_ going to be the main worry for death. No, that had been upgraded to _drowning_.

Apparently that "air-tight seal" hadn't been as "air-tight" as Komui had claimed. Allen wishes that he was surprised, he really does.

"This doesn't make any sense," Lavi says, sounding two parts aggravated and hysterical. "The sprinkler system should have shut down by now."

"Because the Chief's disaster-relief plans always work out _so well_ ," Kanda says from where he's apparently given up on life and is floating serenely in the water. Allen doesn't know where all his knives are gone. "Face it, rabbit. We're going to die."

"We're not going to die, Kanda," Lenalee says. "Shut up and let me think."

"About what?" Kanda says. "We've already searched everywhere for _anything_ that could help us. I'd say that it was nice knowing you all, but I don't particularly feel like dying a liar."

"What's _wrong_ with you?" Allen bursts out, taken aback at the suddenness of his rage. Kanda unseals one eye to give Allen a look that conveys both 'Why are you talking to me, you useless heathen?' and 'I despise your very existence, so why do you insist on plaguing me thusly?'

" _Huh_?"

"No, seriously, what is _wrong_ with you? It's like you don't even care!"

"Here we go," Lavi sighs.

"Shut up Lavi!" Kanda and Allen both say, and then proceed to glare at one another until Lenalee swashes over through the knee-high water to kick at Kanda's ribs.

"Get up and be useful," she snaps. "You too, Lavi."

Lavi looks at the water mournfully. "I don't want to die like this," he says. "Alone. With no friends."

" _Excuse you_ ," Allen says, standing up and knocking him into the water. Lavi lands with a large _splash_ that sends small waves throughout the entire room, the water sloshing angrily at the walls.

"I could just kill you now," Kanda says. "Save you the trouble of drowning."

Lenalee kicks him again. "Get up and get moving. We're going to get out of here if I have to do it myself."

"Then why do I have to get up?" Kanda says. Lenalee raises her leg, and he quickly gets to his feet before she can do any more damage to his ribs.

"I'm not letting any of you die," she says, glaring at them. "Got it?"

The three of them nod, trying not to make her any more aggravated than she obviously already is. Appeased, she walks back to the door, where the leaking had begun. It's very firmly locked, and won't budge even despite their best efforts. It had been kind of dispiriting, throwing the full weight of three (Kanda had categorically refused to help out, even despite the threat of Lenalee's glare) teenagers and having little to no actual effect. "My brother really built this well," Lenalee had concluded miserably. "…except for the seal."

"I'm going to kill him, the next time I see him," Kanda grumbles.

No-one says, "You might not have to," but Allen knows that they're probably all thinking it. He can't help but wonder how many people survived. He hopes that all of them did. He knows that isn't the case.

Unexpectedly, his stomach gives a gargle loud enough that the rest of the room jumps. Kanda, predictably, glares at him. "Control yourself, beansprout."

Allan gives his stomach a sad look. "I can't help but be hungry," he says. "And don't call be beansprout, moron. I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast!"

Lavi looks distinctly nervous. "That sounded almost alive," he says. "Are you going to start attacking us for food?"

Allen narrows his eyes. "You have food?"

"I think he means cannibalism, _beansprout_ ," Kanda sneers. "And it's a fairly logical concern, considering what we know about you."

" _Excuse me_?" Allen says, outraged. "I'm fairly sure that I've _never_ eaten a human being before!"

" _Fairly sure_ , huh?" Kanda says. "Wow, that's so reassuring."

"I've been to some fairly dodgy places before," Allen finds himself admitting. "Who knows what sort of meat they use."

"You've clearly gotten a taste for human flesh," Kanda says, face flat.

Allen squints at him suspiciously. "Did you just make a joke? Or are you being serious? I can't _tell_ , with you!"

"You know, it's really dangerous to eat humans," Lavi says. "I wouldn't recommend it, unless they're cooked _really well_. There are all sorts of diseases –"

"Guys!" Lenalee shrieks, using her leg to send an arc of water to engulf them all. "Is this really the time? We're still _drowning_!"

"Sorry, Lenalee," they chorus, before sending each other distrustful glares.

"Better," Lenalee huffs. She looks like she wants to cross her arms, but had decided that would be a much too painful endeavour to undertake. Instead, she points to the door. "Kanda, try prying that open with your knives."

"Won't that just screw us over more?" Kanda says. "What if blow the air-seal entirely?"

"We're running out of options, here," Lenalee says. "I've looked high and low for an emergency exit, but there doesn't seem to be one built in. Something I _will_ be taking up with my brother, as soon as I see him again. Allen, you're going to –"

There's a hollow _bong_ that revibrates through the room, disrupting the water. Allen startles, automatically wading towards the door. There's another _bong_ , and another, and another. The door begins to dent.

"Okay," Lavi says, slowly. "Who do you think has a better chance of finding this place? Tyki Mikk, or the Chief."

Kanda very deliberately takes out a knife.

"Can I have one?" Allen says.

"No."

 _Bong. Bong._ Another dent. Something burning.

"Is that a blowtorch?" Lenalee says, narrowing her eyes at the red marks that are beginning to appear on the thick metal of the door. She shoulders Allen back. "If it's going to blow, I don't want to be anywhere near it."

"How much water is going to come in, if they destroy the door?" Lavi says.

"There's got to be air on the other side, if they're trying to open it," Lenalee says. "…I hope."

There's a small _boom_. The water in the room sloshes about as the door caves in, sending waves to pour across the four teenagers. Lavi hides behind the couch. Allen wishes that he had had the same amount of foresight.

"Guys?" someone says. "Please tell me that you're a alive."

"Johnny!"

…

…

 **A/N** : Hello, my lovely readers. Special thanks to: **Jazebeth** , **waterlit** , **jy24** and **melovecats** for reviewing! It seriously means so much :)

This was a lot of fun to write, haha. Hopefully things are going to be picking up, since I've got most of my pieces rolling. And yay, Alma! Finally, I've been waiting to use them for ages 3

See you next chapter!

Mneme


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer** : I don't own D. Gray-man. Oh, man, I went over this chapter so many times -_- Still not very happy, but hey, I hope it's not as terrible as I think it is?

…

…

For as long as Lenalee can remember, she's been waiting for her brother to die.

The first time she opened her eyes and saw his face – too close, too big, too everything – she started crying. Loud, hysterical sobs that wracked the little newborn so badly that her mother had, in a panic, called in a doctor. _We can't see anything wrong with her_ , had been to prognosis, and that had never really changed. _We can't see anything wrong with her_.

The crying continued, day and night, until the household was a frayed mess. _We're going out for a bit_ , Komui's mother says, hurried. She doesn't glance towards her crying daughter. _Be good. Take care of your sister_.

 _Mum –_

 _Be good_ , Komui's father reiterates, and then they're gone. Komui stares at the door for a long time, before he glances back towards his sister. _She's ugly_ , he thinks, crouching next to where Lenalee had been set down on the floor. Their mother had knitted a blanket while she was pregnant, and it's laid out carelessly on the floor now, a soft cushion for Lenalee to squirm against. She's already got hair, dark curls brushing down her ears and clipped away from her eyes.

 _Well_ , Komui says, patting her head. _Looks like it's just you and me, for now_.

The crying never really goes away, but it does get better. Komui just has to stay in the room, is all. Their parents notice as, over time, they grow less and less retrained by the whims of their youngest. _We can leave them home alone_ , they tell themselves. _Komui can take care of it_.

Lenalee's first word is: _Brother_.

…

…

"Brother," Lenalee says, brushing strands of hair out of Komui's eyes.

He's breathing, which is a plus, even if the breathing itself is a shallow parody of the real thing. His arms are strapped down, in case it starts to wake up again (the first time, they told her, he had been almost hysterical).

"I'm going to kill you," she tells him, and collapses onto the chair set up next to the bed. They're all huddled in the ruined remains of the infirmary, the bleached walls in rubble. Lenalee can see out into the surrounding land for miles, the grassy hills and thick tree-growth a stark contrast to her claustrophobic sensibilities. _I could run_ , she thinks, clamping a hand down on Komui's wrist.

There are other people here, but Lenalee doesn't want to look. If she doesn't look, then none of this is real. All she needs to see is Komui's chest as it goes up and down, up a down, up and down. He's breathing, he's breathing, he's breathing. Nothing else matters.

If she thinks about anyone else, she's going to cry.

"Lenalee," Lavi says, sitting down next to her. She wants to shove him to the ground, but Komui raised her better than that. Or, well, no – he raised her to shove boys (it had always been specifically boys, which Lenalee found strange) onto the ground when they made her uncomfortable. Lavi wasn't making her uncomfortable, but –

"Go away," she says, not looking at him. Don't look, don't look, don't look. "I'm not in the mood to deal with you."

"Kanda and Allen are trying to kill each other with their previously undiscovered psychic powers," Lavi says. "It's vastly entertaining."

"I'm _not_ in the _mood_ , Lavi."

Lavi grins. Which Lenalee didn't see, because Lenalee didn't _look_. Count the breaths, Li; _in-one-two out-one-two in-one-two out –_

"Kanda's defending his portion of food to the death," he says. Lenalee glares at Komui's throat. "Almost stabbed the beansprout" – he pauses, like he's waiting for Allen to yell at him, and then seems to catch himself – "Uh, twice. Johnny had to drag Allen away before things got serious. The nurses are threatening to resign. Again."

"They do that every few weeks," Lenalee says, despite herself. Lavi's always been someone hard to ignore. "They don't mean anything by it, by now. They've resigned themselves to this."

"Do you want to come and get something to eat?"

Lenalee cuts a quick glare, before she turns back to her brother's body. Don't engage, don't engage. Be kind, be patient, be matur–

"If you don't get your hand off my arm in _five seconds_ , I'm going to –"

Lavi backs up, hands held high above his head. He's laughing, but then, he's always laughing. Lenalee isn't sure what she would do if Lavi stopped laughing. Like Komui's going to stop breathing, sooner or later.

Because of course he is. Of course her brother is going to die. For as long as Lenalee can remember, that's all she could think about: _you're going to leave me alone, you're going to walk out one day and never return_.

"Okay, okay, Lenalee," Lavi says. "Are you hungry, though? Do you want me to _bring_ you something to eat? Before Allen gets to it, of course. Cannibalism is apparently off the menu, now that he's got actual food in front of him, but it's not going to last for long."

"Go away. Leave me alone."

Lavi's voice softens. "The nurses say that he's going to be fine, Lenalee."

Something inside Lenalee's chest _cracks_. She's splintering, somewhere so deep and so hollow that she's never going to be able to put herself together. The first time she killed someone, it was the same. A demon in human skin, metal bones scraping up against red flesh. It hadn't mattered, though, because no one else saw black stars that peppered the surviving bodies. They blew away to dust, but no one saw that, either.

"You think that?" she says, and she doesn't recognise her voice. She turns to stare at him, fingers crushing against Komui's bruising skin. It hurts to press down with her burned arms, it really hurts, but at least she's alive. She can feel his pulse, slow and steady underneath it all. It's worth the pain, to feel that pulse. "You _really_ think that? Look at him, Lavi, he's –"

"Alive," Lavi says, kindly. "Lenalee, look at him, he's alive."

" _I'm looking_ ," Lenalee hisses. "That's all I'm doing, _looking_. You see that? You see him just _lying_ there? He's – he's going to – he can't just –"

"Hey, hey," Lavi says, taking a few cautious steps forward. When Lenalee doesn't hit him, he hugs her. "Hey, it's okay, he's okay. The Chief is tough. After all the shit he's pulled, he has to be, or the other scientists would have killed him ages ago in a coffee rebellion."

Lenalee lets herself laugh wetly into his shoulder. She doesn't let go of Komui's wrist.

…

…

"Oh, _Johnny_ ," Allen sings, face blazing with black fire and eyes glowing red.

Kanda is right beside him, smile fanged and gleaming. He doesn't say anything, but the meaning is pretty clear.

Johnny visibly blanches, trying to duck out from Allen's side of things and make a quick escape. Kanda's taller, and probably would make a better exit in terms of pure logistics, but Johnny's not _suicidal_.

"You know things," Allen continues, clamping a hard arm down around Johnny's shoulders. Johnny tries not to shiver. "Things that _I_ want to know. We're _friends_ , aren't we, Johnny?"

" _We're_ not friends," Kanda says. "But if you don't tell us what you know, I'm going to do some very painful things to you."

"Kanda," Allen says, leading Johnny towards a relatively empty space. Above ground has been decimated, the upper floors almost all blown away. The mansion had been built on top of an unreasonably high mountain (the first time Cross had forced Allen into the place, he had been more than a little winded on immediate arrival) which was now littered with debris. Allen can see the sky.

The basement is a flooded wreck. Wading out of the panic room – which had been, for whatever reason, built in such a way that the water actually flooded _towards_ it – had been a cold, wet nightmare. They're all still in their wet clothing, though thanks to the summer sun things had at least dried a little, if stiffly. It had been a horrible, horrible decision between walking in wet socks to risking a sliced sole by going barefoot. Kanda had chosen not to wear shoes. Allen is still suffering.

"You can't threaten the people we work with," Allen continues, sitting Johnny down on one of the destroyed walls and smiling at him. "We just have to ask nicely. _Isn't that right, Johnny_?"

 _I could have gone to med school_ , Johnny thinks morosely. _I had the grades. That's what Mum wanted me to do. "Be a doctor, Johnny! Make lots of money, Johnny!" I could have been a well-caffeinated, overpaid doctor._

"…yes," Johnny says, making a split-second decision that his life is worth more than his job. A job that is basically obsolete, now that he thinks about it. There isn't much left of his experiments. He'd spent years down there, in that basement, studying things that didn't actually make that much sense, now that he thinks about it. All those hours, wasted. The paperwork, all gone. All that paperwork. He'd been doing the Chief's overflow of paperwork for years. It had developed sentience, once, and tried to eat him.

"Excellent!" Allen says. "Kanda, you stay here and watch our…friend. I'm going to go get Lenalee and Lavi. They deserve to know what's going on as much as we do."

"Oh, I know what's going on," Kanda says. "Apparently, we're not the crazy ones. Wait till I tell the newspapers."

Allen snorts and hurries off. Kanda watches him for a long second, before turning back to Johnny. He's smiling. Johnny wishes that people would stop _smiling_ at him.

"You're going to tell us the truth," he says. It isn't a question.

"O-of course," Johnny says, adjusting his slightly broken glasses and pulling out a grin from somewhere very deep and very dark. He's learned that the best thing to do in no-win situations is to show teeth and avoid fear responses. Fear responses generally led to bad things happening. Like getting eaten by a twelve-foot vaguely parasitical _thing_ that was either a conglomeration of toilet waste and superglue or a demon from the netherworld come to lay waste to mortals foolish enough to call upon its sticky, gloopy power. That had been what happened to Dave.

Allen returns ten minutes later with a bruised cheek and a grimly set face. "Lenalee doesn't want to talk to me," he announces upon arrival.

"What did you do?" Kanda says, suspicious.

Allen shuffles around. "Nothing."

"He tried to make a joke," Lavi says. "She took offense to the nature of it."

"I was trying to lighten the mood," Allen mutters, looking rather peeved. "In any case, that's not important. Lavi promised to fill her in on what we hear. I don't think anything short of a bomb threat is going to move her now, and that'd only be because she needed to get the Chief out of range."

"Alright, Johnny," Lavi says, leaning forward. "Start talking."

 _I could have been a doctor_ , Johnny thinks.

…

..

The first Anomaly was discovered by an unnamed Italian farmer decades earlier. Devout and a little thick in the head ( _Couldn't find his way out of a sack of wool_ , his mother was fond of lamenting) he reported it to the local Vatican representative and thought nothing more of it. He was found dead, weeks later, of a heart attack.

They were heralded as miracles. Miracles! Things that appeared that weren't supposed to. Things that made _other_ …things, happen. Beautiful things, impossible things.

And people. _People_ started appearing, people who spoke of demons and death and blood. _I can see them_ , one particularly frightened individual sobbed into confession. _I can see them. I have to kill them. They're going to kill everything I love. They can't do anything but destroy._

 _What are they_? The Vatican asked. _What can you see_?

The answer was universal: We see demons. We see evil.

Ridiculous, the Vatican said. Preposterous.

But they continued through the decades, collecting the miracles and banishing them away to small, secret corners of the world.

…

..

 **A/N** : THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO READS/COMMENTS! Special thanks to my reviewers: **jy24** , **Eliza** **Ridley** , **melovecats** , **Ruakilover** and **1over7**. You're all angels :)

I'm not too happy with the explanation. I think I'll go back and re-write some of it, when I've got time. I wanted to get this chapter up vaguely on time, though, so I guess you'll have to live with bland mediocrity until my back pain subsides.

ANYWAY, I'll see you guys next chapter! If you enjoyed it, feel free to comment :) :)

Mneme


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